


The Impossible Witch

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Double Penetration, Established Relationship, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Witchcraft, very
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-04 19:19:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16352660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: Jon isn’t a witch.  Maybe.  Probably.  He’s pretty sure.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nobirdstofly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nobirdstofly/gifts).



> Remix of [live deliciously](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14042148) by nobirdstofly
> 
> This is a sequel to nobirdstofly's wonderful fic. Thank you for letting me play in your sandbox!

Jon wakes, slowly, to the blinding sun of the Inland Empire beating through his sunglasses.

“We’re here,” Tommy murmurs, squeezing Jon’s knee as he brakes the car and rolls down his window. “Good morning, officer.”

“Sorry, sir, this lot is full. The overflow lot is a mile that way.” The police officer points east down the crowded four-lane boulevard.

“We’ve driven an awfully long way,” Tommy says, leaning his elbow out the window and dropping his voice, a hint of suggestion coloring his tone. “Surely there’s at least one open spot.”

The officer pauses, something dark flashing across his eyes, as he steps back. “I’m sure there’s a spot at the end. Please, enjoy the convention.”

“Thank you, sir. We really appreciate it.” Tommy smiles his widest, most charming smile, putting a little extra behind it as he spins the steering wheel, pulling them forward and into a spot in the far corner of the parking lot.

Jon reaches back, pushing at Lovett’s crossed knees, whispering “hey.”

Lovett comes awake with a start, swearing as he rubs at the sore muscles at the back of his neck. He falls out of the car mostly shoulders first, catching himself on the edge of the door and swearing “fuck” again at the heat of the metal. “It has to be 110 in this godforsaken hellhole.”

“112,” Tommy confirms, glancing at his phone as he steps more gracefully out of the car and pulls his Red Sox hat further down his forehead to catch the sweat.

“Why did they host it _here_?” Lovett groans, as he gathers himself enough to pull at the air, building a small, personal funnel of wind that ruffles his hair and ripples his t-shirt.

Jon wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close enough to catch the edges of the breeze as they start walking up the endless stretch of steaming pavement towards the crowd of people queueing to enter the Nos Center. “Why did they decide to host a magic convention in the middle of nowhere?”

“The High Priestesses are cheapskates.” Tommy shrugs as he pushes close to Lovett’s other shoulder, leaning his head in to catch the cool air.

Lovett sighs, murmuring a word that Jon still doesn’t quite catch, even after months of hearing both Lovett and Tommy cast spells in Ancient Gaelic daily. The small tornado spreads and deepens to encompass all three of them. “Worse than the D-trip,” Lovett agrees. “If we have to canvas out here come October-”

“We’ll leave you home,” Tommy promises. “I’m better at persuading voters, anyway.”

Lovett rolls his eyes. “What would our listeners think, if they knew all that Iowa bullshit you spew is really a ruse for unstable magic?”

“Stable enough to _win_.”

Lovett stops them at the back of the line and pulls the wind away from Tommy. “Put that persuasion of yours to good use,” Lovett tells him as he protests, nodding down the line of witches - half dressed in long, dark trench coats with copies of _The Beginners Guide to Wicca_ shoved in their back pockets and half dressed, like them, in as little clothing as they could possibly get away with in public - with a raised eyebrow.

“Now,” Tommy chastises, “that would be unethical.”

“Like what you did with that parking officer?” Jon asks, innocently.

Tommy raises an eyebrow that Jon’s certain is meant to be threatening, but his red, sweaty forehead really belays the effect.

Lovett laughs, reaching out a finger to poke at Tommy’s chest. “You’re a filthy hypocrite.”

“Mmm.” Tommy hums, reaching up to wrap his hand around Lovett’s finger. “We’ve got an awfully long wait- “

“I told you how you could fix that- “

“- and if you’re not going to share that wind, I’m just going to have it steal it.” He tugs on Lovett’s finger, pulling him close. He spreads his hand along Lovett’s lower back, fingers long and pale and, as Jon watches them, flashing dark with magic around his cuticles. Lovett moans, rising up and into Tommy, the gust of wind whirling around both their heads as their mouths meet.

“It is way too hot for that,” their neighbor complains.

Jon laughs, stepping forward as the line inches ahead.

***

The 2018 SoCal Wiccan Convention is held in a series of high-ceilinged pavilions with too many stretches of open space between them. Jon's sweating in places he didn't know sweated by the time they walk into the first one. It’s filled with smoke and herbs so thick that Jon sneezes the moment he steps inside.

Automatically, Lovett pushes against the smoke, creating bubbles of clean-ish air around them. Jon’s eyes still water as he squints through the press of people.

“Okay,” Tommy says, pulling up their shopping list on his phone as he leads them down the first row. “Lavendar, juniper, palo santo.”

“Still feels like overkill,” Lovett frowns. 

Tommy shrugs. “Tanya says it’s more effective. And with midterms coming up, we’re gonna have to start cleansing the office daily.”

Jon flinches. He still flinches thinking about what could have happened a few weeks ago now if they hadn't been so unbelievably lucky. They'd all been working late, but Jon had pulled his headphones low over his ears as he listened to hours and hours of focus group footage for the Wilderness. He hadn’t really been watching Lovett and Tommy clean out the corners of their company’s psyche, so strong and quick to joy but inevitably bogged down in the day-to-day minutiae of the Trump Presidency. He hadn’t noticed, at all, the click of the door or the way Lovett’s breath had caught from where he was crouching in the corner of the kitchen, a bundle of juniper hanging loosely from his fingers. Jon had noticed the subtle shift in the air, as Lovett automatically pulled it around himself and Tommy reached out with his own power, preparing to push Tanya, gently, in the direction of forgetting. Before either of them could act, though, Tanya had shrugged, suggested “you should switch it up, maybe use a little juniper? Some palo santo on weeks Trump tweets about North Korea,” before she'd grabbed her laptop charger and turned on her heel.

Her grandmother, she’d explained later, at one of the more awkward lunches Jon’s had since he’d been introduced to the magical world. They’d casually thrown around notions like _bloodlines_ and _Eastern European covens_ and Jon still doesn’t quite understand the lines of succession that sometimes follow familial lines and sometimes follow lines of intent. He also doesn’t quite understand the look Tanya had thrown him as she’d mused, “I knew about you, Tommy,” as Lovett had grinned smugly, and “I was pretty confident about Lovett,” as Tommy had flushed just as smugly, “but Jon-“ She’d trailed off, her eyes narrowed and her pupils dark as Jon had ever seen them, before she’d shrugged, her expression clearing, and ordered them another round of margaritas.

“In that case,” Lovett stops, twisting on his heel and leading them towards a table piled high with braided grasses, stocks of grains, and crystals. “We should get some resin, too.” He peers at a few pre-packaged bags, before frowning. “Where’s the good stuff?”

The woman behind the table looks at him, consideringly, before huffing and pulling a plastic tupperware from under the table. “This is expensive. I sell it by the ounce.”

Lovett waves her away - “I’ll take 10 ounces” - and, then, at Tommy’s raised eyebrow - “the psychic energy of our company is at stake, what’s a couple hundred dollars?”

Tommy huffs, but he hands the woman a couple crisp bills, taken directly from the bank, in exchange for the half-pound bag of yellow resin. As they step away from the table and slip back into the crowd, Tommy mutters a spell over the bag and passes it to Jon to put in his backpack. Jon opens his mouth to protest, but closes it as the bag settles in his hand, lighter than a pigeon’s feather.

“Magic,” Tommy whispers, his voice bright and low, as he presses a kiss behind Jon’s ear.

“No shit,” Jon chuckles, as he pushes Tommy away, blinking his watering eyes into the cloud of smoky heat. His head suddenly feels full and heavy and he turns his chin, searching for the bubble of clear, clean air. He frowns. “Where’d Lovett go?”

Tommy’s smile twists, just a little hint of the darkness Jon can feel, sometimes, at the limits of his vision. Midnight black flashes, teetering at the edge of his imagination. A feeling that appears, now and then, when they’ve gone too long between bedroom cleanses or during those long weeks when Jon was stumbling home at midnight with the future of the Democratic Party ringing in his ears. 

“I’m sure he’s just grabbing more of those dried berries Leo knocked over last week.” Tommy shrugs.

Jon nods, then sneezes. They may still be in the civilian pavilion, but his eyes are watering in the thick air that’s threatening to smother him in the smell of sandalwood and the taste of lemongrass and the muddy mix of insoluble magics. Jon sneezes again.

Tommy frowns, sliding his index finger into the back of Jon’s shorts and leading him, subtly, down the aisle. Jon squares his shoulders against the press of witches and the clang and clatter of good-natured bargaining, trying to see the invisible line that Tommy seems to be following. They bend and weave, and Jon almost thinks he’s made out the bright, shimmering sliver of Lovett’s aura - which Tommy swears is a deep, vibrant teal firefly of magic but Jon has still never seen - when Tommy stops, his shoulder brushing against Jon’s.

Jon follows his gaze to the darkest corner of the pavilion, filled with a series of card tables cast in shadows and piled high with tarot cards and mancala stones and sugary crystals that leave dust on Jon’s palms but don’t cut him. Lovett’s behind the table, his hands thrust deep in his front pockets, shoulders folded inwards. He’s nodding, intently, at a much older woman dressed in what looks like the witch costumes Jon’s mom used to rent from the local Party City at Halloween.

Next to him, Tommy’s muscles tense and he narrows his eyes at the woman.

Lovett must feel them, because he turns, forcibly softening his shoulders. “Hey.” He motions towards the woman. “This is Crystal. I know her from, ahh, the _1600 Penn_ days. Used to do readings for the writing staff.” Lovett grins, but it reaches his eyes with spots of darkness. “Little did they know it was real. Anyway-“ Lovett steps out from behind the table, pocketing something quickly, and nods towards the door. “I got what I came for, so, outside before Jon sneezes out any more brain cells. I don’t know how many he has left to spare.”

“Fuck off,” Jon plays along, because Tommy is still glaring at Crystal, his arms folded over his chest. “I could really use some fresh air, though.”

Lovett laughs, stepping in front of Jon and leading the way to the exit. Tommy follows, slowly, behind them.

***

Jon wakes from a short, post-lunch nap on the grass outside pavilion two as Lovett shifts next to him, his elbows brushing against Jon’s hips as he sits up. Jon blinks under his sunglasses, groaning as his back cracks against the uneven ground underneath him. He struggles to sit up next to Lovett.

Tommy throws his arm over his eyes. “Time?”

“Yeah.” Lovett’s fingers twitch in his front pocket, but he pulls his phone out of his back pocket. “We’ve got a list a mile long.”

Tommy groans, turning his head towards Jon without opening his eyes. “You’ll be okay out here?”

“With the Hot Topic witches?” Lovett leers.

“That’s not fair,” Jon argues, dropping his voice and bringing his mouth close to Lovett’s ear. “I may not be able to get through the magic gate, but I have quite a bit of experience with _certain_ types of magic.”

Lovett swallows. “Yeah,” he breathes. “You do.”

Tommy laughs at them, as he slides to his feet and holds out his hand for Lovett to pull himself up. “Meet us over by that fir tree at four? It’s close to the door.”

Jon nods, watching them go. They disappear long before the horizon, stepping past the first roots of the fir and into the hidden magical market that Jon can’t see even though he knows it’s there.

“Hey, man, you want a hit?” The guy next to him, obviously taking pity on Jon’s gaze, holds out a joint.

Jon looks at the guy’s chipping fingernails and takes a deep whiff of the smell, considers for a moment, before shaking his head. “Thanks though.”

The guy shrugs, turning back to his Tupperware lunch of grapes and crustless PB&J, and Jon lies back on the ground, closing his eyes.

When he opens them again, it’s not even three o’clock but he’s sweating under the relentless desert sun. He struggles up, pressing against his lower back to crack it as he contemplates going back into the herb pavilion. His eyes water at just the thought, though, so he heads to the fir tree instead, taking refuge in its shade and leaning against the trunk, crossing his ankles in front of him.

He stretched his calf, twisting his foot to the left until he feels the muscle stretch and his toes start to- tingle. He thinks, for a quick moment, about contact highs, before he looks down. He can’t see his toes. He can see his knee, his ankle, his heel, but then his Toms blur from grey to nothing halfway up the sole.

He pulls his toes back and the tingling feeling stops, but the toe of his shoe flickers and fuzzes at the edges, like they’re coated in something non-dimensional. He shifts closer, lifting his leg and sticking his ankle past the invisible horizon. He stares at his calf, half red and sunburned and the other half- missing.

“In or out,” an old man grunts at his elbow.

Jon jumps, snatching his leg back and catching himself against the tree.

The man growls. “Can’t have the non-magical folks sniffing around.” He takes a step forward and grumbles, “kids these days, everything’s a toy to them,” as he steps through the magical door.

Jon glances around him, then straightens his shoulders. _Intent_ , Lovett always says, is the key to magic. Jon pictures Lovett in his mind, pictures that shimmering teal thread of his aura, closes his eyes and, with a deep breath, steps forward.

“Outta the way!”

“Don’t block the door!”

“Fucking new comers. Imbeciles, the lot of you.”

Jon opens his eyes, shying to the side as he’s pushed and pulled between a mass of people. He had thought the pavilion was crowded, but it has nothing on the witch market. Jon has to close his eyes for a moment as his senses adjust to the overwhelming rush of stimulation. It smells like lavender and saffron and the twang of something akin to curry that tickles Jon’s nose until he sneezes. The air tastes thick with lemongrass and cedar and dried leaves. It feels thick, too, flickering across Jon’s skin like lightening, like the fireflies of every witch’s aura, filling the air with the electricity of magic, even though Jon can just make out Lovett’s, and just barely.

Teal flashes at the edges of his peripheral vision, and he steps away from the doorway, sliding into the hustle of the crowd moving in that direction. He loses it a few times - he has to spend a good ten minutes next to a table weighed down with buckets of stones from beaches all over the world that can only be standing with the aid of magic, staring at a point on the far wall and waiting for the flash at the very edge of his sightline - but he finally follows it through a sharp left, down a series of stairs that lead into the middle of the earth, as far as Jon can tell, and into a much darker hallway. The lights flicker overhead, casting shadows over darker tablecloths and sinister goods. Instead of shouting their wares into the existential scream upstairs, merchants down here speak in low murmurs, voices dropped and muffled as buyer and seller lean close.

The teal flickers at the edge of a curtained space, and Jon steps to the side. He can hear Lovett’s low voice, carrying on a rapid, clipped conversation in a language Jon doesn’t know. Where the language Lovett and Tommy speak together is throaty and curved, these new words sit in Lovett’s mouth, twisting around his tongue in angles and lines. 

Jon reaches for the flap in the curtain and slides it just open enough for him to catch sight of Lovett sitting, cross-legged, on the floor. He’s swirling a ceramic teacup between his hands, twisting it back and forth as he argues with an older gentleman. The older witch is wearing a yarmulke over his long, white hair and his fingernails are coated in dirt and moss as he motions towards the cup, a deep frown on his face. Lovett rolls his eyes as he hands it over, then pulls his knees tight to his chest.

The old man grunts, twisting the cup, as he peers down the edge of his glasses, directly at Jon.

Jon falls backwards, tripping over a pile of Persian rugs and catching himself on the edge of a table that was ready to collapse without his weight.

“Have you lost something, young man?”

Jon looks up, into the face of an ancient, homely woman with chipped teeth and spotted cheeks. She holds out a stalk of herbs.

Jon shakes his head. “No, I’m- I’m okay.”

She hums. “Maybe not lost, hmm? Something incomplete.” She holds up a crystal. It glints beautifully off the light, but before Jon can shake his head, she clucks her tongue, dropping it back to the table. “No, no, that isn’t right. I know just what you need- Where is it?” She scrambles through stacks of parchment and bins of rusting metal, until she comes up with a small, cedar box about the length of her thumb.

Jon goes to shakes his head, again, but freezes.

Her eyes light up. “Yes, yes, it calls to you, doesn’t it?”

Jon swallows. His throat feels dry, electricity crackling across his skin, as his navel pulls him towards the box. “How much do you want for it?” He asks, before he can stop himself.

She hums thoughtfully, turning it over in her hand. “This is very rare. Made out of wood taken from the highest cedar tree in the Himalayas. Very rare, very rare.”

“How much?” Jon urges.

She purses her lips. “$500.”

Jon scoffs, even as he retraces his steps in his mind, trying to remember if he’d passed an ATM. “$100.”

“$300.”

“$200.”

She grins. “Sold,” and holds out her hand to shake his.

He nods at her, grabbing his wallet and pulling out a stack of $20s. She takes them and drops the box into his palm. He turns it over in his hand for a long moment - the buzz on his skin settling the longer he holds it - before he feels his phone buzz and he swears, pocketing the box quickly. “Thank you,” he murmurs, before slipping back into the crowd and jogging down the dark hallway, up the stairs. The main halls feels too bright, now, even through the haze, and he slides his sunglasses over his eyes and he shoves his way to the front door and steps through it, holding his breath that it works the same way in reverse.

He lets the breath go as he leans stumbles into the sunlight and throws himself against the fir tree, willing his shoulders and his ankles to relax as his heart pounds wildly in his ears.

“Hey.” Tommy calls, as he crosses the grass to Jon’s tree. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Jon feels a flash of guilt, but the box burns warm in his pocket, and he shrugs. “Right here this whole time.”

Tommy frowns, and Jon can see a flash of black around his mouth. He can feel it, too, the soft, gentle push - just a whisper of a suggestion, really - to tell the truth. It’s bright and glittering and tempting, but Jon swipes at it with his mind, imagining the suggestion splintering into wafts of smoke and trailing away.

Jon shrugs, casually. “I did get a slushy,” he admits. “Don’t tell Lovett. He’ll be pissed I got one without him.”

“What will I be pissed about?” Lovett asks, as he steps out of the door in the sky behind them. His curls are wet under the edges of his Move On hat, and he wipes quickly at his forehead as he joins them. “Fuck it’s hot out here.”

“Yeah,” Jon agrees. “Got everything you need?”

Tommy nods. Lovett shifts his eyes to the left, then pushes his sunglasses up his nose.

“Tommy’s driving. I need a nap.”

“You napped the whole way here,” Tommy protests, but he pulls the keys out of his pocket and rings them around his index finger.

***

"It was overwhelming," Jon admits, late the next Wednesday. They have most of the overhead lights off, and LA glitters below them, casting shadows through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

It had taken longer than they wanted - and more than Tommy's charming grin - to find a new office that fit all their exacting standards. "Not having mice is really all I need," Jon had grumbled, more than once, each time Lovett rejected a high rise office for bad juju or Tommy put his foot down about the energy seeping through the ceiling of otherwise perfect places on Fairfax and Melrose and in Little Tokyo.

As Jon watches Lovett crouch in the corner of the office, blowing gently on the edge of his braid of sweetgrass with his mind, and Tommy stand on his desk chair, blowing smoke onto the ceiling with his mouth, he can admit the wait was worth it. Even if Sarah had threatened more than once to quit on them if they didn't fix the plumbing. She’d had her resignation written up and signed. Jon had seen it.

"But also fascinating," Jon continues, pausing on the last edits of the outline. "A whole community of witches I didn't know existed."

Tommy snorts. "That was just the surface of LA's magical community."

"It's too bad," Tanya agrees, as she ties off a braid of sweetgrass with a strand of juniper, "that non-witches can't even get a taste of the magical market."

Jon fingers the small cedar box he's been carrying in his pocket since the convention. It warms under his fingertips as he shrugs and says, “the price I bear for not being a witch,” with more conviction than he feels.

“Someday, I’ll take you to the Arts District,” Tanya promises him.

“I’ve been to the Arts District.”

“Not this Arts District,” Tanya winks at him. Then she turns her attention to Lovett, narrowing her eyes at him. “You bring me my blueberries?”

Lovett straightens, groaning as his knees crack, and crosses to his backpack. He tosses a bag of berries to her. “Dried, spelled, and packaged.”

Leo tries to catch the bag in the air, but Lovett uses a gust of air to push it into Tanya’s waiting hands.

Leo sits, tilting his head from Lovett to Tanya and, finally, to Jon.

Jon chuckles at him, “beats me, too, buddy,” and turns back to the outline.

***

Jon wakes with a start, his breath catching brokenly in his chest. The middle finger of his right hand burns and stings, and he can feel adrenaline sweat pooling in the back of his neck.

Next to him, Tommy huffs in his sleep and rolls over, one arm flung over Jon’s hips and the other burrowed under his pillow. Jon watches him for a moment, tracing the easy, youthful lines of Tommy’s face with his eyes. His body responds, like it always does to Tommy, but also with something a little more, a buzzing and whirring stretching from the sharp pain in his finger, dancing across his skin, and settling between his thighs. 

Jon shifts, already sliding a hand down Tommy’s chest, when he notices the cold, rumpled spot over Tommy’s shoulder where Lovett should be. Jon frowns, pulling back the quilts instead and sliding out of bed. He reaches for a pair of sweatpants, adjusting himself under the waistband, and pulls on the t-shirt Tommy had discarded the night.

Lucca meets him on the other side of the bedroom door, racing past his ankles in a blur of dark, shaggy fur. Her hackles are raised and her eyes are dark and guilty as she curls on top of Tommy’s feet. She rests her chin, forlornly, on her paws.

Jon frowns at her as he backs into the hallway. It’s dark, but there’s a light on in the kitchen and Jon follows it, wishing he’d put his socks on in the air conditioned June chill. “Lucca looks awfully guilty. What did you yell at her for this time?” Jon asks, before he even rounds the corner and sees Lovett’s head bent over the first aid kit.

Lovett’s head jerks up and it takes his eyes a moment to clear of the dark, black magic filling his pupils. “I was making tea and she was underfoot,” he explains, finally, his voice a little choked. His eyes narrow at the way Jon’s rubbing the inside of his middle finger, a mirror of the exact place Lovett’s coating in Neosporin. “I burned myself, but you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Jon looks down at his own finger, tan and unblemished and aching. “Sympathy pains,” he offers.

Lovett grunts and flinches as Jon reaches out, pulling Lovett’s hand towards him. He does let Jon wrap his red, blistering skin in a Super Mario band aid.

“You shouldn’t have felt that,” Lovett mutters, shaking his head so his curls brush against Jon’s forehead.

Jon shrugs, pulling Lovett’s finger to his mouth for a kiss. “I’m not gonna apologize for sharing your pain,” he whispers, “and I’m not going to let you distract me from whatever that-“ He motions towards the kitchen table- “is.”

Lovett flinches again, pulling his hand back and gripping the edges of the counter. “It’s nothing.” Jon raises an eyebrow, but Lovett won’t meet his eyes. “Some cards, some tea. A little reading about the future of our crumbling democracy, no big deal.”

“That good, huh?”

“The cards are undivided about our bleak future,” Lovett laughs grimly. “So I thought I’d try the tea leaves. They’ve always liked me a little more.”

“Sarcasm?” Jon asks, because he can’t actually be sure, between the blisters on Lovett’s finger and the glint of fire in his eyes.

Lovett snorts. “Yes. No.” Lovett shakes his head. “They’ve always liked me a little too much.”

Jon slides his leg between Lovett’s and gets an image of Lovett in a dark DC speakeasy, pouring hot water from an unwieldy tea pot into ceramic cups placed in front of members of the DC Elite, crowded together in the small space, their pants suits pressed together under the table. Lovett’s eyes are a little wild as he leans across the table, voice low and wrinkled, like he’s speaking with centuries of wisdom he can’t possibly have, as he offers obscured predictions about Bin Laden and Cuba and DACA and healthcare.

“The Dram and Grain was a magical gathering place for the inner DC cabal?”

“Fuck.” Lovett’s eyes widen and he pushes back from the counter. “Fuck. You shouldn’t have seen that. You shouldn’t have- I stopped dosing you with magic. Tommy said he’d stopped, too.”

Jon buzzes at even the thought, and he instinctively leans forward, pushing into Lovett’s space. “You didn’t have to stop.”

“We really fucking did,” Lovett puts a hand on Jon’s chest, holding him still. “There’s a reason it’s outlawed. There’s a reason we shouldn’t, regardless of the rules.”

“Like there’s a reason you shouldn’t be reading tea leaves anymore?” Jon asks, dropping his voice low.

Lovett nods, his eyes shifting sideways, towards the table piled high with scattered tarot cards and tea cups. He licks his lip. “There’s something-” He shakes his head, frustration curled into every lock of his hair. “It’s big and it’s dangerous and it’s just out of reach, and I can’t- The cards, they’re not-” Lovett takes a deep, shuddering breath and locks eyes with Jon. “They’re not enough.”

Jon reaches out for Lovett’s hip, sliding his fingers under Lovett’s t-shirt and tracing slow, comforting circles on his skin. “What can I do to help?”

Lovett pushes into Jon’s touch, his voice breathless as he asks, “let me read your leaves?”

Jon’s heart thumps against his chest. He nods.

Lovett stands where he is, breathing in Jon’s space for a long pause before he turns and opens the cabinet in front of him. He digs through the spices, pushing aside jars of paprika and thyme and rock salt, until he rises onto his toes, reaching as far back as he can and pulling out a small, ceramic jar.

He turns back to Jon, his face a little flushed as he opens the jar, holding it out. It’s filled with tea leaves and smells like anise and birch and mint. Jon feels a tug at his belly button and he’s back in the magic market, behind the curtain with Lovett this time, as Lovett meticulously measures out a mathematically-pleasing amount of each mix of the tea. 

_The old man in the yarmulkes stands over him, his mouth moving in the motions of Ancient Hebrew as he recites. But, this time, Jon can understand. “Gather around so I can tell you what will happen to you in days to come. Assemble and listen, sons of Jacob; listen to your father Israel.”_

_“I know the scripture,” Lovett mutters, scooping a perfect teaspoon of marigold for prophecy and clairvoyance. “The scripture can’t save me from what I see coming.”_

_“This is not like you, my son,” the rabbi urges. “You know how temperamental the leaves can be. We predict, but we do not prophesize.”_

_“I know, I know, I just- I need to know.”_

_“If you try hard enough, the leaves will let you see whatever it is you are so desperate to see.” He frowns. “But your choices make your future. The script has not yet been written.”_

_“But what if I make the wrong choice?” Lovett asks, without looking up from the frankincense he’s measuring into the jar._

_The rabbi clucks his tongue. “You cannot know what is wrong and what is right until your history has played out.”_

_“That’s why I_ need _to know.” Lovett drops his scoop and seals the jar shut. “How much do I owe you?”_

_The rabbi sighs, but pulls out his calculator._

“Jon? Earth to Jon.”

Jon blinks, and the jar of leaves comes into view, under Lovett’s creased, worried brows. “Sorry, I- I don’t know what- I was behind a curtain in-” Jon shakes his head and frowns. “Was I speaking Hebrew?”

“ _I_ was speaking Ancient Hebrew,” Lovett corrects, his entire body tense. “You were just understanding it, which is, granted, still not okay.”

Jon shrugs, reaching up to press a curl behind Lovett’s ear. “I’ve been in your head before. Tonight, even.”

“Yeah.” Lovett breathes, forcibly, his chest beating against Jon’s. Lovett’s pulse feels like a waterfall in Jon’s ear. “Yeah, no, this is different, this is-”

“Hey.” Jon takes the jar from Lovett, corking it and reaching past him to slide it back into the cupboard. “That’s enough for tonight. Tommy’s probably missing us anyway.”

Lovett snorts, tipping his forehead into Jon’s chest.

“And you owe Lucca an apology.”

“Okay, okay,” Lovett says, pushing away and crossing to the kitchen table. He sweeps his cards into an uneven stack and shoves them into a drawer, pausing to read the top card until Jon yawns, breaking him out of his spell. “Right,” Lovett mutters, slamming the drawer shut and glancing at the clock. “Shit, when did it pass three am?”

Jon shrugs, as he pulls Pundit off the couch and into his arms. He shoos both Leo and Lovett in front of him as they head back to the bedroom. “Probably around the time you burned yourself on the tea kettle.”

“Fuck,” Lovett says, with more meaning than necessary.

Jon drops Pundit to the bed and Tommy grumbles “what time is it?” without opening his eyes.

“Long past the witching hour,” Lovett jokes.

“’s terrible,” Tommy tells him, even as he reaches out to wrap an arm around Lovett’s waist, pulling him back and against him.

Lovett huffs, but settles. Jon tries to do the same on Tommy’s other side, but he’s still buzzing with the smell of the tea and his subsequent memory walk. He hears both their breathing even out long before he closes his own eyes.

***

"Hey."

Lucca raises her head from Tommy's thigh, wagging her tail across the thick book in his lap and drawing his eyes to Jon. "Hey. You're home early."

Jon shrugs. "The office was stuffy," he says, an inadequate description for the way his skin had grown increasingly itchy as the day progressed. He nods at the book. "You record tomorrow?"

"No." Tommy puts a finger in the book and closes it. There's a Celtic symbol on the front that shimmers and almost solidifies in Jon's consciousness. "Yes, tomorrow, but this is a history of 14th century seances."

Jon grabs two beers from the fridge and joins Tommy on the couch. "What spirits are you trying to commune with?" He jokes, as he tries to rub Lucca's wiggling tummy.

"Some 17th century futurist," Tommy shrugs, accepting the beer and taking a long sip.

"Wait." Jon's hand stills and Lucca whines, butting her head against the base of Jon's beer. It foams over his fingers and he swears, cleaning his fingers against his jeans. "You're actually going to try and raise the dead?"

Tommy's face twists. "No, of course we're not gonna raise the fucking dead. How stupid do you think we are?"

"Pretty stupid."

Tommy rolls his eyes. "Lovett seems to think the end of the world is fast approaching. This futurist has 'answers.’’’ Tommy makes air quotes with his index fingers.

"Some crack from the 1600s has answers about the dark, shadowy future of Trump's presidency?"

"Yeah, I don't know." Tommy shrugs, his shoulders tightening a little. "Lovett can get like this. Sometimes."

Tommy reaches a hand out, letting his fingers trail over Jon's. Jon gets a flash of Tommy's flushed, worried face, half a decade smoother than it is now, watching the front door of their shared apartment until Lovett stumbles in, long after the full moon has risen, with wild hair and wide, dark pupils.

Jon shivers and Tommy pulls back.

"I almost lost him, then." Tommy reopens his book. "I'm going to be prepared, this time."

Jon spreads his knees, bumping Tommy's as he reads over Tommy's shoulders. The Celtic symbols dance tantalizingly in front of him. "Show me."

Tommy looks up at Jon for a long, careful moment. Then he turns towards Jon, shooing Lucca gently to her bed in the corner as he pulls his leg onto the couch between them and reaches for Jon's hand.

"Lovett's really better at healing spells," Tommy says, his voice low and quiet, as he turns Jon's hand, palm up. "It's all about the elements, you know?"

Jon swallows, nodding thickly as he wills his body not to move.

"But calming spells," Tommy continues, trailing his fingers up Jon's lifeline, leaving flashes of bright, lightning magic as he continues up the vein in Jon's forearm. Jon's blood rages, like it's rising to meet Tommy. "Calming spells are just another form of suggestion."

He continues, his voice dropping low and deep into Gaelic. His words shimmer in the air, splitting and solidifying again in golden ruins up Jon's arm.

Jon tenses, his fingers tightening momentarily in Tommy's- Before his mind sinks into the clouds on a warm May day on the shore in Martha's Vineyard, warm rocks on his back, with Tommy's hand steady in his and Lovett's voice comforting in his ear. 

Tommy laughs a little breathlessly. "I'd like to take you there, someday,” he whispers, and Jon isn’t sure, anymore, if he’s speaking in English or Gaelic. “We used to go, every summer, when we were kids. My mom taught me my first spell on that rock, the one you’re warming your back on now. I want to stand with Lovett in that spot, repeat the spells we used to cast in childhood. Make a blade of grass grow. I want to watch Lovett whisper to the winds, the whole of the shore at his mercy.

“I want to take you sailing. I want to show you how to tie the mast and lean into the wind. I want to try this same spell, see if we can fix some of that motion sickness so you can feel as at home on the water as I do.”

Jon groans, his stomach roiling as the boat rocks in his mind. He grips Tommy’s hand, forcing his eyes on the shore to center himself, swearing against motion sickness and the pill Tommy didn’t warn him to take. From his place at the bow, directing the wind with exacting hand strokes, Lovett laughs, shouting something back to Tommy that Jon can’t quite make out.

Tommy squeezes Jon’s hand and their WeHo house blurs back into view. Jon’s stomach lurches, again, as he’s pulled forward, into the solidity of Lovett’s threadbare couch under their legs, Lucca’s fur curled against his back, the blown-up photo of the three of them, with Dan and POTUS, that has the place of honor above the mantel.

Jon sways forward, chasing the calm for an interminably long moment, before the magic crackles across his skin and settles, thick and heavy and incessant, between his legs.

"Woah," Tommy chuckles, catching Jon's shoulders and speaking over them. "That spell's a work in progress, apparently."

Jon blinks, following Tommy’s gaze to where Lovett’s standing, his backpack hanging loose over one shoulder, Pundit on her back legs at his feet, her hackles up. He’s scratching absently between her ears, his eyes dark and trained on Jon’s palm, still gripped tightly in Tommy’s, golden symbols still shining against his skin.

“Apparently,” Lovett agrees, his voice scratchy as he licks his lips to wet them. He reaches down to adjust himself in his loose grey sweatpants.

“We’ll just have to practice.” Tommy raises an eyebrow. “If you’re amenable.”

Jon groans, tugging his hand out of Tommy’s. A bit of the tension cracks and splinters, but the sparkling, iridescent feeling remains, like ash left after a lightning strike. “Are you fucking kidding me? You can’t feel that?”

“Of course I can,” Tommy soothes, trailing his fingers up the inside of Jon’s thigh. Jon twitches, his muscles pushing forward. “Just have to make sure.”

Lovett huffs out a breath, teetering between a moan and a laugh. “As much as I’d love to finish what you assholes started, we have that cocktail thing. With the fucking D-trip and half the California Democratic Party.”

Tommy’s hand stills, just inches from where Jon really wants him. “Fuck, I’d forgotten.”

“Clearly.” Lovett pushes Pundit down and takes a step towards their bedroom. “I’m gonna go find clothes that aren’t quite so revealing.”

“Don’t touch yourself,” Tommy calls after him.

They hear Lovett’s swearing all the way down the hallway.

***

“God,” Jon mutters, burying his head in his forearms, his eyes closed against their bedspread. “Please, Lovett.”

“Look at me,” Tommy orders, tapping on the back of Jon’s neck. His voice sounds gratifyingly rough. “Look at me, babe, and Lovett might take pity on you.”

Lovett’s fingers twitch against him, already dripping lube along Jon’s heated skin. Jon whimpers, but forces his eyes open and up, to catch the wide, icy blue of Tommy’s irises. “Please,” Jon whispers. His voice is thick and his tongue tastes like gin as he swallows. “I’ve been hard for _hours_. Tommy, please, please- “

“I know.” Tommy traces his chin with a finger. “Whose fault is that?”

Lovett snorts. “Yours. Calming spell my ass. Where did you find that spell, _Kamasutra for Witches_?”

“That book of healing charms your mother sent,” Tommy bites back, as he hooks his index finger under Jon’s chin and urges him forward. “So patient. You want Lovett’s fingers?”

“Obviously.” Tommy’s fingernail digs into his skin and Jon shivers, shifting forward, a little, between Tommy’s knees. “ _Please_.”

Tommy wraps his hand in Jon’s hair, tugging lightly, as he nods at Lovett.

“I don’t think my mother sent us a sex book,” Lovett rolls his eyes, but he flexes his finger, catching it around Jon’s rim before pushing inside. Jon pushes back into it, greedy for more, as he drops his head into Tommy’s thigh. 

“I’m not saying she did it on purpose,” Tommy muses. He traces the shell of Jon’s ear with gentle, barely there, tantalizing touches. “Maybe she didn’t know what it was for.”

“Or maybe,” Lovett argues, as he adds a second finger, “you don’t know how to do healing spells. Sometimes you don’t know your own strength, Tommy.”

Lovett crooks his fingers and Jon keens, pushing back against Lovett’s wrist.

“Maybe,” Tommy muses. He shifts against their headboard, spreading his knees around Jon’s ears and pulling him closer. “Maybe Jon just finds us so unbearably hot that he can’t focus on anything else. Not even in a room of two hundred members of the State Party and Party influencers.”

Jon can feel the heat of Tommy through his dress pants, and he’s pretty sure Tommy spent the entirety of the fundraiser just as turned on as Jon was. He turns his head, bumping his nose against Tommy.

“Fuck. Yeah, just-“ Tommy flicks open the button on his pants, opening his fly just enough for Jon to get his mouth around the bulge in his briefs. “God, Jon, I couldn’t stop thinking about your mouth the whole time I was talking to the Californian AG.”

Lovett chuckles. “I’m sure the AG appreciated that.” He thrusts against Jon, his own dress pants scratching against the bare skin of the back of Jon’s thighs. He scissors his fingers and Jon spreads his knees a fraction more. “Yeah, just like that. So hot, Jon. So eager.”

Jon lifts off of Tommy just long enough to mutter, “if you don’t wanna fuck me, I can just do it myself.”

Tommy chuckles, even as he tugs reproachfully at the shell of Jon’s ear.

“Eager,” Lovett repeats, laughing as he pulls his fingers out. “I like that.”

He steps off the bed and Jon protests the loss of contact. He hears the rustle of fabric as Lovett undresses and wants to turn his head to watch, but Tommy’s hips are lifting off the bed in small, unconscious thrusts and Jon can’t bear to move away.

Lovett’s skin is warm and bare when he kneels back on the bed. “Ready?” He whispers, his voice low and serious in Jon’s ear.

Jon nods between Tommy’s thighs and pushes his hips backwards, an invitation, an invocation. Lovett hisses as he pushes forward, the head of his dick breaching slowly, pushing against the muscles of Jon’s ass and waiting, patiently, for Jon to loosen around him.

Jon’s been wanting this, though, since he was sitting on the couch with Tommy. He wanted this through the car ride to the fundraiser. He wanted this as he stood by the bar, downing recreations of 1920s gin cocktails, watching as Tommy and Lovett worked the room, selling their podcast and schmoozing with Hollywood and Party elite. He wanted this on the car ride back, with Tommy’s hand resting high on his thigh and Lovett making a show out of palming himself in the backseat.

He pushes back, taking Lovett in to the hilt in one long, smooth thrust. Jon hums against Tommy’s cock. Lovett groans, collapsing onto Jon’s back as he holds himself steady. “Fucking hell. A little warning next time?”

Jon shrugs his shoulders as his body adjusts to the burn of Lovett so thick inside him. Lovett’s fingers dig bruises into his hips and Jon’s skin crackles. Shards of magic dance down his thighs and up his spine, spreading out from every point Lovett’s touching him.

He feels their bodies lift an inch off the bed, then another inch.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lovett murmurs, pressing kisses along Jon’s back as he closes his eyes, his eyelashes brushing against the ribs of Jon’s spine. He chuckles, self-deprecatingly. “I didn’t mean to- I’m having trouble concentrating, for some reason.”

Jon crosses his arms in front of him, resting his cheek on his folded hands so he can glance back at Lovett. “I don’t mind it. In fact-“ He reaches one arm back, wraps it around his own dick. “- it’s so fucking hot I can’t stand it.”

Tommy knocks his hand away. His knees are still spread, his fly gaping open obscenely, a couple of inches below Jon’s head. “Don’t come until we tell you to.”

Jon groans, squeezing one time, tightly, around the base of his cock, before pillowing his hands again. “Better make it quick, then.”

“Not really gonna be a problem,” Lovett promises. He straightens, pushing himself deeper into Jon and his groans sink into Jon’s until Jon can’t tell who’s making the more embarrassing of the tight, high-keening sounds. 

Tommy shifts on the bed, raising his hips so he can slip his pants and briefs down his hips. He kicks them off, his eyes never leaving them, now floating a foot off the bed. “ _God_ , you’re so much together.” His voice is rough and gravely. He palms himself slowly, a quarter tone to the rhythm Lovett’s set. “I could get off, just watching you.”

Lovett makes a long, wet, disbelieving sound. “I can’t believe you let me do this with you. Either of you.”

“Any time,” Jon promises, his own voice embarrassingly high and tight. “All the time. I love this, Lovett. I love you.”

“Fuck.” They rise another foot off the bed and Lovett cries out, his fingers tightening on Jon’s hips and his tempo sliding sideways into something fast and staccato. Jon loves this part most, when he pushes Lovett so close to the edge that he tips from his carefully-created aura of chaos into actual chaos. 

All Jon can hear are the short, broken sounds falling from Lovett’s mouth and the suction of skin on skin. All he can see is feet of air between himself and Tommy. All he can feel is the rush of magic below him, around him, in him as Lovett cries out and comes, deep and long.

Jon shivers, squeezing his eyes shut and focusing all his energy on not losing it as Lovett comes apart inside him. 

When he opens them again, his knees are back on the bed and Lovett’s tipping sideways, falling onto his side on the bed next to them.

“You killed me.”

“I don’t see you complaining,” Tommy says, his words tight and strained as he reaches impatiently for Jon. “Come here.”

“I’m so close,” Jon whispers, as he settles his knees on either side of Tommy’s thighs. He’s holding every muscle coiled, afraid that he’ll come the minute he touches Tommy’s skin.

“I know, I know.” Tommy spreads his fingers along Jon’s thighs. “Lovett?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lovett pulls himself up, settling more steadily on his side as he reaches out with his mind. A coil of air wraps around the base of Jon’s dick, a magical cock ring that is nearly enough to make Jon lose it, right then. “Okay?” He asks, as he tightens it a fraction.

Jon nods. “Perfect.”

Tommy tugs and Jon knees forward. He fists himself, once, twice, then holds his dick steady, directing Jon over it.

Jon lowers himself slowly this time, savoring the stream of cries and whimpers and moans he pulls from Tommy.

“You’re so wet,” Tommy leans forward, pressing a kiss behind Jon’s ear. “I can feel Lovett in you.”

“Shit.” Jon falls forward, resting his head on Tommy’s shoulder. 

Next to them, Lovett swears, reaching out to trace Jon’s rim and the edge of Tommy’s dick. Tommy shivers along the length of Jon’s body and he leans sideways, searching for Lovett’s mouth.

Lovett chuckles, pulling his hand away so he can twist his fingers in Tommy’s hair. Jon’s eyes slit as he watches them kiss, and his dick twitches against the air.

“ _God_.” Tommy pulls back, his thighs tightening under Jon. “I’m so close. Are you ready?”

Jon nods and then he feels the cock ring ease. His dick bobs against his chest, wet and slick. 

Tommy shivers inside him and Lovett wraps his fingers around him. Jon pushes forward, into the rhythm, running up against the edge and teetering there. His thighs shake, barely able to hold his weight. Lovett runs a thumb over his head. Tommy groans, mouthing at the pulse point in this neck.

Jon’s been on the edge for _hours_ , and yet he hangs there, trapped between Lovett and Tommy and the cliff. He arches his head, moaning in frustration, his mind sliding back to the feel of the cock ring. His dick twitches and he moans out, before he can stop himself, “not your hand.” He reaches down, shoving Lovett’s hand away, in case Lovett hadn’t quite gotten the memo.

Tommy groans, his eyes sliding closed as he shakes apart around Jon. Jon spreads his knees the slightest bit further, feeling Tommy so hot and wet and riding him through it. It’s not until Lovett whispers a spell, though, and the air wraps an imaginary fist around Jon’s cock, that Jon comes, silently and harder than he ever has before.

He falls to Tommy’s other side, unable to hold his knees steady anymore. He’s barely going to be able to walk tomorrow, but he can’t be sorry for it. He should get up, clean himself off, probably let the dogs in and apologize for being so distracted at the fundraiser. But his mind is finally quieting and his skin feels cool and settled for the first time since Tommy’s calming spell, hours ago. He closes his eyes against Tommy’s shoulder and, lulled by the worried voices overhead, falls asleep.

***

Tommy already has an LL Bean handle bag packed by the time Jon gets home from a grueling day of Vote Save America preparations. Jon had been hoping for a quiet night with Postmates from the Italian place Tommy’s been dropping hints about all day and maybe a couple hours on Twitter while Lovett kills zombies or gathers gems or whatever game he’s been playing the last few times Jon’s fallen asleep on the couch with Lovett’s head leaning back against his hip.

Tommy, though, is carefully packing cheese cloth and half-burned candles and what looks like three colors of sidewalk chalk into the bag.

“I couldn’t find the cedar,” Lovett calls. “Will saffron work?” He appears in the doorway, holding up a jar of crimson flowers.

“This is your spell,” Tommy frowns. “But communing with the dead seems like a pretty important time to have things right.”

Lovett wrinkles his nose and disappears back down the hallway.

“Did I miss something?” Jon asks, dropping his messenger bag to the table and leaning against it, crossing his arms across his chest. “Kinda thought it was date night, tonight.”

“Tonight’s the full moon.” Tommy nods at the wall calendar he’d nailed to the wall when they’d moved in a few months ago. “You should really start reading the Lunar calendar.”

“I already have enough calendars,” Jon mutters, holding up his fingers so he can start ticking them off. “My calendar, the dog calendar, the calendar for our company, yours, Lovett’s-”

“I’ll add the lunar calendar to the company one,” Lovett promises, as he reappears with a jar of cedar leaves. He places it carefully in the bag. “There’s a good one that connects with Google.”

“Thanks,” Jon deadpans.

“Hey.” Lovett steps close, forcing Jon to spread his legs to make space for him. “I’m sorry we’re ditching you to make nice with a 17th century futurist.”

Lovett’s voice is loose and easy, but his hands are twitching nervously and his curls are mussed from running his fingers through them. Jon sighs, unfolding his arms and holding Lovett’s hips. “It’s okay, I’m getting used to playing second fiddle to four-hundred-year-old quacks.”

“Not a quack.” Lovett’s mouth twists. 

“Hopefully,” Tommy adds.

Jon tightens his fingers. “Either way, all I ask is that you tell me before you replace me.”

Lovett snorts. “That’s ridiculous.” He presses a quick kiss to Jon’s mouth, then steps back. “We’re leaving the dogs with you.”

Jon laughs and lifts his chin for a kiss from Tommy. Tommy grants it, before bundling Lovett out the door. It slams behind them, leaving a thick, oppressive silence in their wake. Jon sighs, pulling out his phone and ordering enough food for all of them, before settling onto the couch with all three dogs and CNN.

***

Jon wakes hours later, his neck screaming at him and his heart beating frantically in this chest. CNN is still blaring in the background and the room smells like cream sauce and lemon juice from the containers still open on the coffee table. Lucca’s snuffling at his feet and Pundit and Leo are curled together on the arm of the couch.

Lightning zings across Jon’s skin and he sits up, careful not to zap any of the dogs as he reaches for the small, cedar box he’s been carrying around since he bought it at the magic market. It’s hot in his pocket but it doesn’t burn him as he holds it up, close to his eyes. It’s lit with an internal glow, sigils visible in carved spaces of lighter wood where Jon’s never seen them before, even though he’s spent more hours inspecting the box over the past weeks than he has podcasting.

The box glows in his hand, a series of flashes that Jon doesn’t understand. He raises the fingers of his free hand, running them, lightly, over the divots of the sigil on the top of the box.

For a moment the world goes black.

Jon blinks, and the world swims back into view. Not black, just dark, the light of the full moon hidden by a thatch of trees. Jon shivers as a breeze ruffles past and he rises from his crouch, brushing dirt and twigs from the knees of his sweatpants. In the distance, he can hear the murmur of voices and he follows them to the edge of the thicket, where the moonlight is illuminating the clearing.

Tommy and Lovett are standing in a pentagram, dug into the ground with chalk and a wobbly stick. As Jon watches, Tommy steps forward, reaching his hand out for Lovett's. Lovett holds out his palm, wincing only a little as Tommy pricks his finger, then squeezes until a drop of Lovett's blood falls into the center circle. Tommy adds his own, then raises his hands, chanting low and rhythmic and repetitive in Gaelic.

Jon sees the spirit before they do. A transparent wisp, rising from the center and coalescing into the face of a man in a bowler hat and a monocle. The man winks and Jon's blinded by a flash of light. He reels back, a branch breaking silently under his heel, as Tommy does the same. His voice wavers, the spell flickering in the air, as his foot smudges the edge of the pentagram.

Jon hears Lovett's yell before he sees Tommy fall. The monocled futurist turns towards Lovett, tilting his head and speaking low and fast in clipped Aramaic. Lovett holds out his hands, his face twisting, and then there's a second flash of light, a clap of power as loud as thunder, and Jon blinks his eyes open.

The box is still hot in his hand, but it’s dark now. As Jon runs his fingers over its edges, the wood is smooth and even.

Above his head, Pundit sits up on the cushions, her ears perked and focused at the front door. She barks, once, and Jon’s pretty sure it’s nothing more than a rebuttal to Lovett’s late return, but it sounds like a warning. Either way, it pushes Jon out of his reverie.

He pockets the box, struggling up from the couch and heading into the office. The book of healing spells Tommy was using the week before is still sitting on the bookshelf. He pulls it onto Lovett’s desk, opening it to the Table of Contents and feeling a rush of relief when the Gaelic symbols coalesce into understanding, the same way they had when Tommy had read to him.

The list of ingredients is two pages long, but Jon finds as many as he can in the shelves of - extremely disorganized - jars of herbs and spices and dried berries that Tommy keeps meticulously stocked. He takes the armful into the living room, and is placing them, gingerly, on the coffee table when he hears the squeal of Lovett’s Jeep in the driveway. 

Pundit jumps off the couch and Jon chases her to the door, taking half of Tommy’s body weight as Lovett shoulders his way inside.

“Get him to the couch,” Lovett tells him, sparing only a passing flick of surprise that Jon’s waiting for him, hands open, “I need to-“

He stops, staring at the jars of herbs on the coffee table for a long minute, as Jon lowers Tommy to the couch. He has a burn across his chest, his skin black under the shreds of his t-shirt. When Jon tries to pull back, Tommy grasps Jon’s hand, his eyes blinking open, his irises black as midnight.

Jon stumbles and Lovett catches him, pushing him down onto the coffee table. “I’m gonna need your help,” he orders, then, without waiting for Jon’s nod, grabs his hand and pricks his index finger, like Jon watched Tommy do earlier. Lovett pricks his own again, not shivering this time, as he presses drops of both their blood into a small, stone bowl.

Jon shivers, power surging through his veins.

Lovett shivers, too, then reaches for the book, flipping it open to an exorcism spell. He balances the book precariously on his knees and reaches for the jar of dried wild mushrooms. He’s so focused, the sparks of teal magic he usually hides so well flickering across his shoulder blades, that he doesn’t notice when Jon rescues the book from tipping over and starts feeding Lovett the herbs and spices he needs.

When Jon reaches the end of the instructions and the herbs are mixed with their blood, Lovett draws a sigil on Tommy’s chest, right over the burn, with the mixture. Then he takes Jon’s hand and starts to chant, low and rumbling and a little desperate, in Hebrew. Jon closes his eyes, channeling every intention and ounce of power he has into Lovett’s hand. His lips move of their own accord, until he’s chanting with Lovett, the words coming to him through their hands or their blood bond or something deeper and darker- Jon doesn’t know and Lovett doesn’t seem to even notice.

Time swirls around them until, finally, Tommy takes a deep, shuddering breath and opens his eyes. They’re squinted in pain, but his irises are a cool, crisp blue. His chest heaves, clear and pale and drenched in sweat and herbs, but otherwise unblemished.

Lovett collapses onto the coffee table, like the marionette strings of his magic have been cut. His arms hang wearily over his knees and he drops his chin to his chest, his head too heavy to hold up any longer. “Thank fuck,” he mutters, and his voice is scratched raw.

Tommy coughs, rubbing at his chest as he sits up, wincing at the pull. “No more seances,” he tries to joke, but his voice is almost as rough as Lovett’s.

“Fuck.” Lovett raises his head, his eyes almost as dark as Tommy’s were, with guilt more than with magic. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t- I thought-“

“Hey.” With effort, Tommy sits on the edge of the couch, his knees on either side of Lovett’s. “Not your fault. I thought so, too.”

Lovett takes a deep, painful breath. “Yeah.”

Tommy stretches his neck, scraping at the drying mess on his chest. “I need a shower, will you-?”

Jon can still feel the magic coursing through him, making the world brighter, more vibrant. He can make out every wrinkle at the corner of Tommy’s eyes and pick out every crease in Lovett’s voice. The lights flicker on the millisecond and his muscles feel taught with unleashed energy.

“You go,” he hears himself saying. “I’m going to take the dogs out.”

Tommy frowns, but exhaustion runs through every inch of him, and he doesn’t argue as he lets Lovett help him up and towards their bedroom.

Jon grabs the dogs’ leashes. He walks until Pundit sits down, refusing to walk any further, and Lucca collapses on top of his feet. Then he lets them back into the house and runs another ten miles.

He’s still singing with power when he gets back. Lovett and the dogs are passed out on the bed, but when Jon climbs out of the shower, Tommy’s eyes are shut tight in pain, his body tense even in sleep.

Jon drops his towel to the floor, making a mental promise to Tommy to pick it up in the morning, and slides into bed behind him. He presses a gentle hand to Tommy’s shoulder, calling up an image of a sunny summer afternoon around the pool, Lovett throwing a ball for the dogs as Jon spreads sunscreen across Tommy’s back. Jon pushes the image toward Tommy, reciting the spell Tommy had used on him, just last week.

Jon’s hand lights up and Tommy’s skin glows under him. His muscles ease and the wrinkles around his eyes smooth.

The power sizzling through Jon’s veins subsides and, when Jon pulls back, he feels exhausted enough to sleep for five days. He curls closer to Tommy and closes his eyes.

***

In the days after the seance, Lovett slips further away. The dark smudges under his eyes slide from charcoal to midnight dark, a color Jon can now recognize as ash left in magic’s wake. He leaves Jon in bed with Tommy for long stretches of time, promising that his phone is on if Tommy takes a turn for the worse, but otherwise wrapping Pundit’s leash around his wrist and disappearing out the back door. He comes in late and he leaves early, the last to bed - which is normal - and the first out of bed - which is distinctly abnormal.

“I’m worried about Lovett,” Jon tries to address, when he wakes on Wednesday morning to find Lovett’s side of the bed cold and barely rumpled. 

Tommy holds his spot in his thick book on the Space Race - he’s been using his time convalescing to bank a couple episodes of Pod Save the World for the dream vacation they’ll never get to take - and turns to Jon. “He gets like this.”

“He gets like this,” Jon agrees, “when he has a weekend of live shows, I know. If this is different-?”

“You mean, if I thought he was reading leaves again?”

“He is.” Jon urges. “I know he is.”

“Not professionally.” Tommy sighs. “He’s blaming himself for the seance, which is fucking stupid, but it’s harmless. If he wants to mope for a few days while I lie in bed and take advantage of all the free Postmates-?” 

“Yeah.” Jon slides his legs over the edge of the bed. His hands are shaking, and he buries them under his knees. In the days since he - maybe, possibly, can’t quite decide if he wants it to have been a figment of his imagination or not - used the calming spell on Tommy, he’s felt the power growing again. Like he has a well of it, behind his belly button, that builds and builds until it has to spill over in circling, twisting whirlpools that spark across his skin, begging to be harnessed. “Hey, Tommy?”

“Hmm?” Tommy doesn’t close his book this time.

“Is it possible-?” Jon swallows. “I know witches are born with their magic. But do witches ever have- I don’t know, latent abilities that people find when they’re adults?”

“No.” Tommy peers over his book. “But, if we’re making you feel left out-“

“No, no,” Jon says, quickly. He clutches the edge of the mattress tightly, then forcibly loosens each finger. “That’s not what I- I’m good.”

Tommy hums.

“Promise.” Jon reaches over for a quick kiss.

When he turns around at the edge of the bathroom, Tommy’s already nose-deep in his book again.

***

By Friday evening, Tommy’s well enough to be moving around on his own accord, but Lovett still insists he stay at home with the dogs rather than dragging himself to Lovett or Leave It. Jon, though, sits in the front row, leading the laughter through Mueller and the Russia Stuff and giving the appropriate frowns at the rant wheel.

Once the show is over, though, he follows Lovett out the back door of the Improv. He climbs into his own car, keeping a safe distance behind the Jeep. He rolls his eyes as Lovett parks at the Angel City Brewery - almost convincing himself that Lovett’s been ditching them to drink IPAs with Spencer, or- Jon’s heart twists as he climbs out of his car and follows Lovett’s footsteps behind the warehouse.

The wall is covered with graffiti. It swirls, oranges clockwise and greens counter-clockwise and yellows in a circular motion inwards, ever inwards. Jon pauses next to a neon bear that roars in his ear, watching as Lovett stops near a section of the wall. He speaks, low and too quiet for Jon to hear, then laughs a little and takes a step forward.

And disappears. Into the wall. 

Jon’s skin buzzes, the magic coiling in his gut. The squeeze on his heart eases.

He slides out of the shadows and stops in front of the same section of the wall where Lovett had disappeared. There’s a spray-painted image of a woman with a long, hooked nose and two ET-style alien antennae. She swirls and comes to life under Jon’s eyes. “Who do we have here?”

“Jon.” Jon swallows, holding his hand out before stopping himself. “Favreau. You just let my friend through.”

She clucks her tongue. Her nose bobs in greens and yellows. “Troubled, that one.”

Jon winces.

“How can I help _you_?”

“I-“ Jon pauses, meaning to say he’s looking for Lovett, but he says, before he can stop himself, “I’d like to learn some magic.”

“Yes.” She rubs her hands together, her purple eyes glinting in the low streetlight. “I sense something unfinished in you.”

“Unfinished?” Jon slips his hand into his pocket, fingering the small, cedar box as it burns against his skin.

“Incomplete. In progress.” She rolls her eyes. “I will let you in this time, but I expect double the toll next time. You hear me?”

“Yes ma’am,” Jon nods quickly. “Of course.”

The wall shimmers and blurs.

Jon walks through it.


	2. Part II

“Focus.”

Jon pushes away the threatening headache and narrows his eyes at the small, obsidian stone sitting on the edge of the desk. It doesn’t move. 

“Focus.”

The stone doesn’t even wobble.

Ms. Mary flicks her fingers. Across the room, her birchwood switch rises off her desk and floats to Jon, ready to swat his hands in reproach. Instinctively, Jon focuses on the magic sparking across his skin and swirls the wind around his wrists, building a whirlpool. The birchwood switch hits the wind, then falls harmlessly to the floor.

“Good, good.” Ms. Mary clucks her tongue. “Again, without the fear for your hide.”

Jon sags against the back of a chair, glaring at the birchwood stick. He tries to focus back on the small stone rimmed in dust on the desk. If he squints his left eye just right, he can see the stone wobble. It’s probably - definitely - a trick of the light. Or the exhaustion that dogs him every time he even tries to tap into the well of magic sitting, stubbornly, behind his navel.

In the weeks since Jon first crossed into the magical night market hidden in one of the more populist neighborhoods in downtown LA, Jon’s made not-insignificant but certainly not significant progress. Under Ms. Mary’s distracted eye, Jon’s managed to make the occasional hail storm or lock charm using blood magic, but nothing more and never without fear as a motivating factor.

Jon still isn’t entirely sure that Ms. Mary isn’t a quack. Jon found her on a bulletin board, calling for “students of all ages and skill levels.” She wasn’t the first teacher Jon tried. She was the first to accept his money.

Jon, honestly, still isn’t entirely sure that he can even do magic. He can still feel it singing across his skin, pulling at his navel and coloring his mind. Parlaying that raw power, however, into anything that isn’t dangerous or unhinged has proven near-impossible and, more often than not, so debilitating that he’s pretty sure Tommy’s about to sign him up for a migraine study.

Jon is so focused in the quiet room that he hears the last of the sand in the hourglass trickle to the bottom. He straightens before Ms. Mary snaps her fingers and says, “our hour is up,” with almost as much boredom and relief as Jon feels.

On the desk, the stone remains stubbornly still, surrounded by untouched dust. “Maybe I’m not a telekinetic,” Jon offers, as he packs the small selection of herbs and mortar and knives he’s collected and stores them away on his shelf in the back of Ms. Mary’s classroom.

“This is the first skill witches learn. Two year olds can move objects when they desire.” She holds out her hand and Jon hands over a $100 bill.

She folds it into her fist, and flits away, into the back of the room.

Jon sighs, calls, “see you next week,” and shoulders his messenger bag. If he hurries, he can catch the end of Lovett’s tea readings before he hast to leave. Lovett’s table is set up in a small saloon off the main road and down an ominous alleyway, past flickering signs that offer “Rare Herbs from the Middle East” and “Love Spells for all your Heart’s Desires” and “Danger! We Sell Spell Books that Will Bite Your Hand Before You Can Bite Them.”

Jon isn’t looking up as he exists Ms. Mary’s school, focused, instead, on reattaching the watch she insists he take off during lessons. When it’s on, he glances at it and swears. Lovett will have to wait until next week; Jon’s going to be late.

The traffic on the highway is steep and Dan's waiting at the curb outside Terminal 1, his small suitcase at his feet and his nose in his phone, as Jon pulls up. He lowers the window of Lovett's Jeep and calls, "Hey stranger, you're on that pod, yeah? The one about politics. Any opinions on the anonymous op ed you'd like to share with a big fan?"

Dan throws his suitcase into the backseat and climbs into the passenger side. "I share all my thoughts on this great site. You might have heard of it. Twitter.com?"

Jon chuckles, feeling his exhaustion slide mostly away as he pulls Dan into a one-armed hug. "I'm partial to the more personal takes."

"I used 'dip shit' at least three times today, I'm not sure how much more personal I can get,” Dan chuckles.

"Touché." Jon taps his fingers against the steering wheel as he waits for a break in traffic, then eases the Jeep off the curb.

Dan takes too long to answer and, when Jon risks traffic to glance over, he's starting at Jon's fingernails like he can see the remnants of crushed herbs and failed magic in his cuticles.

Jon squeezes the wheel. His headache settles, strong and insistent, behind his eyes.

"I could have grabbed a Lyft," Dan offers, finally, shaking his head a little, and Jon's almost certain that his eyes flash, briefly, from blue to black.

"Don't be stupid. What's a trip to LA without some waiting at the curb at LAX? It's a rite of passage."

Dan chuckles. "I've already survived my hazing, and just barely. This?" He motions towards the gleaming stretch of bumper-to-bumper traffic in front of them. "This is everyday hazing and it's why I don't move here."

"If you lived here," Jon wheedles, "you could just take a leaf outta Lovett's book and refuse to cross the 405."

Dan glares. Jon smiles innocently. Enough of these conversations, he figures, and he might just wear Dan down. Probably. Maybe. Unlikely.

"We didn't realize ‘til last weekend that we never outfitted the guest rooms in the new house," Jon pushes on. "Lovett called the national Parachute rep to have them deliver sheets on time, rather than drive to Venice."

"Smart man," Dan grins, "after my own heart."

"Hey."

"Still not moving," Dan promises. He rises onto one hip so he can pull his phone out of his back pocket. "Wanna see pictures of the baby?"

Jon glances at the unmoving traffic and reaches for Dan's phone.

***

Dan hasn't been to LA since Tommy found them an extravagantly expensive three-bedroom off of Melrose. It's walking distance from the office and has both a pool and a stone garden. There was already a dog door onto the patio - "a sign," Tommy had glowed, even as Lucca had raced out and into the pool before she'd realized her predicament - and they'd signed the contract that evening.

It's long past sunset by the time they pull into the driveway, but Tommy and Lovett are in the garden. Tommy's grilling steaks and vegetables, nodding along to Lovett's rendition of the first few days of Kavanaugh hearings, complete with accents and rude gestures from his place on a lounge chair, surrounded by all three dogs.

When Dan and Jon enter, though, the dogs' ears perk up. Leo greets them, stretching his front legs against Jon's thigh, as Pundit whimpers for Dan to pick her up.

"Traitors," Lovett mutters, but he leaves Lucca on the chaise to pull Dan into a long, surprisingly tight hug. Lovett doesn’t let go, the only trace Jon can see of the tea leaves he knows Lovett was reading just an hour ago, down a dark, seedy alley, under a sign that promises "READINGS AT YOUR OWN RISK" in a speech bubble from a neon hag with a long, warted nose. Jon knows because Jon's followed his aura every week, twice a week, down that dark alley, to slide anonymously into the crowd of LA's most superstitious elite waiting for Lovett to pass judgement on whatever pilot, treatment, or project they've hung months of their lives on.

If Dan can see the toll it's taking on any of them - the deep circles of ash under Lovett's eyes, the increasingly dark flashes across Tommy's shoulder blades, whatever has sunk and twisted into Jon's gut - he doesn't let it show.

Dan just hugs Lovett back, then pulls Tommy into a one-armed hug and complains over his shoulder about Tommy’s grilling technique, and sits at the table with Pundit and a lukewarm beer. Lovett doesn’t offer to chill it with the arctic air stream. Tommy flips the steak with the set of grilling utensils Jon had gotten him for Christmas two years ago, before he knew that Tommy could grill with his fingers. They talk about Kavanaugh and Beto, they debate the road to single-payer and Lovett draws out their Hispanic non-voter problem on a napkin.

Jon can almost pretend, for a few all-too-brief hours, that the last few months have never happened. That they’re sitting around this same table, where it used to sit in his own backyard, debating the outline for the next day’s live show. That the very real danger of Trump’s disaster presidency is the only worry taking up space in Jon’s chest. That magic doesn’t flicker across Jon’s skin, begging and insistent, like a dark maw he has to fill.

Lovett twists in his seat, swinging his legs over the armrest and burying his bare feet under Jon’s thigh. Across from them, Tommy’s face softens, flushed and happy for the first time in days, where his chin rests on Lucca’s head.

Jon squeezes Lovett’s knee and, after dinner and a few rounds of drinks, he leans against Tommy’s shoulder in the guest room doorway. 

“Hopefully you have everything you need,” Lovett says, as he futzes with the square, tassled, only-for-aesthetics pillows on the bed, “cause we don’t have anything else.”

“I’m good,” Dan chuckles.

“Promise?”

Dan laughs again and Tommy holds out his hand. “Leave the man alone, it’s way past his bedtime.”

“It’s way past my bedtime,” Lovett grumbles, but he takes Tommy’s hand and lets him tug them all to their bedroom.

As Jon slides into bed next to Tommy and slips his hand around Tommy’s hip and into his boxers, he can almost pretend that this is enough. That having Tommy’s mouth on his and Lovett’s fingers in his hair can fill the dark, sparkling darkness in him.

***

Jon’s goodwill lasts through the live show at the El Ray the next evening.

It lasts through Lovett or Leave It, which they watch from the wings, with Dan at his shoulder and Tommy’s hand in Jon’s back pocket. It lasts through multiple beer towers and rounds of BBQ at their favorite place in Koreatown.

It lasts all the way into Friday, when Dan’s presence in the office is a warm, welcoming addition. He hosts a Lunch ’N Learn about social media lessons he’s already taken from the 2018 campaigns. Jon watches from the doorway as the interns eat their poke bowls almost silently, riveted on Dan’s every word. Afterwards, there are so many questions that they push their founders’ meeting back a bit, and Tommy’s still asking about the differences in the Wisconsin and Georgia State Party Twitter games when they enter Little Marco. 

It even lasts through a heated reprisal of an ongoing financial argument between Sarah and Tommy.

Jon’s running a little late by the time they’re through, but traffic is lighter than usual and he has to pay the graffiti witch with an entire six-pack of assorted IPAs, but his good will lasts, stubbornly, through Ms. Mary’s disapproving tongue-click and his inability to so much as make the stone shake.

It lasts right up until the moment he leaves her classroom, tired and aching, his eyes focused on shoving his _Beginner’s Guide to Spells_ into his messenger bag, and-

“Jon.”

\- he freezes.

Dan is leaning against the wall opposite Ms. Mary’s, his leg bent casually against the wall and his hands clasped in his lap. He’d look casual to the passing observer, but Jon can read the tightness in his thigh muscles and the waver in his voice. Dan’s eyes flash black.

Jon’s goodwill melts away, fizzling with magic as it slides down his skin. “You’re a witch,” he gasps.

“You are-" Dan pushes off from the wall, crossing the distance between them, his eyes boring deep enough to hit Jon’s soul. “- not.”

For a moment, Jon thinks about pretending. Thinks about pretending that this is all a fluke, that Dan’s asking for a different Jon, the one he’s been pretending to be for the last forty-eight hours. He thinks about pretending he’s the Jon he was just a few months ago, the Jon who couldn’t walk through magical wards, the Jon who couldn’t cast healing spells, the Jon who didn’t feel magic like a black hole in his bones.

The moment passes, and Jon shakes his head. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”

“I wondered,” Dan murmurs. “In the car, your fingernails.” He reaches out, taking Jon’s hand and tracing what must be flashes of magic around his cuticles. “It’s not yours.”

“Not mine?” Jon repeats, slowly.

“Look closely,” Dan insists.

Jon squints his eyes, focusing all his attention on the skin under Dan’s fingers.

Dan sighs, exasperated - “have they taught you nothing?” - and as Jon looks up in protest he sees, at the edges of his peripheral vision, the teal of Lovett’s and the black of Tommy’s magic swirling, mixing, flickering across his fingernails.

Jon gasps and pulls his hand away. “How?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

“You’re here for a live show,” Jon says, quietly, but he adds a question mark.

“An emergency live show,” Dan shrugs. “At my request. Well, really, at the High Priestess’ request. The graffiti hag ratted you out.”

Jon feels a desperate laugh rising in his throat. He feels lightheaded. Magic crackles across his skin and now that Jon knows, he can feel how foreign, how desperate, how hungry it is. “I knew she didn’t like me.”

“She’s partial to sours,” Dan says, like Jon should have known that IPAs were not the best bribe. Maybe he should have. Maybe he would have. If he were actually a witch.

Flashes of relief and loss burn down his spine so quickly that Jon bends over. His eyes flash with dots of teal and black magic and as he blinks, the hallway tips sideways.

“Woah.” Dan catches his elbow, pulling Jon’s weight against his side. “I was afraid of this. Come on, before you collapse.”

Jon allows himself to be half-dragged down the street, but he gets his feet mostly under him again as they duck off the busy high street and into a dark alley. “High Priestess?” He asks, as they pass signs declaring BOOKS WILL BITE, ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK and CHECK YOUR WEAPONS AT THE DOOR. 

“Her emissaries run the highest magical court on the West Coast,” Dan says, keeping his fingers wrapped tightly around Jon’s elbow. “Holds court in the Castro Theatre. What, did you really think _traffic_ is what’s holding me back from moving here?”

Jon shrugs. “Yeah, actually.”

Dan laughs, as they stop under the familiar, neon green sign of a witch dealing tarot cards. He holds open the door to the saloon and Jon brushes against him as he enters, hoping for a flash of Dan’s memories the way Jon gets bits of Tommy and Lovett’s, but Jon’s mind stays static-ed and panicked.

The saloon is crowded, but Jon sees Lovett right away. He’s mid-joke, his feet pulled under his hips and a kettle boiling at his elbow. Half a dozen men are seated around the table, all dressed in matching dark suits and red ties, with greased-back hair and matching CEO-in-danger-of-losing-everything looks on their faces. The one on Lovett’s left doesn’t wait for the joke to be completed before he tips back his steaming mug of tea, his back rippling as he winces, and hands it over.

Lovett finishes his joke, laughing a little to himself before he twists the cup, holding it gingerly between his fingers. Lovett murmurs something, a rhythmic chant too low for Jon to hear, and his eyes flash teal for a moment.

As Lovett’s eyes fade back to brown, Dan steps forward. Lovett’s gaze settle on him, and he says something, short and obviously dissatisfying, to his client, before waving them all away.

The men grumble, but they take one look at Dan and they leave the table, heading for the bar, clearing the path. Lovett’s entire face widens as he stares at Jon. “Fuck.”

“Relapse?” Dan asks, as he straddles the chair across from Lovett and reaches for the kettle. He pours himself a mug of tea and swirls the leaves in it without looking down.

Lovett’s shoulders slump, and he looks more exhausted than Jon’s ever seen him. “You must have felt it.”

Dan nods. “She sent me to figure it out.” He turns to look at Jon. “Sit down before you faint.”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Jon says, as he sits on Lovett’s other side. His knees are shaking, but he presses one against Lovett’s under the table.

“Fuck.” Lovett reaches over, grabbing Jon’s hand and turning it over the same way Dan did earlier. He traces Jon’s cuticles, his fingers soft and gentle and trembling. “How did I miss this?”

Dan folds his hands in front of him, but doesn’t say anything.

“He’s the center of this, isn’t he?” Lovett asks, quietly, still staring at the flashes of his own magic, entwined with Tommy’s, on Jon’s skin.

“ _He_ ,” Jon bites out, slowly, “is right here.”

“Lovett’s going to read your leaves,” Dan says, in the same tone he used to use to shut down arguments about speeches about national security issues Jon and Lovett weren’t yet privy to. “And if I’m right-"

“Dan’s a mage,” Lovett leans closer to Jon, “he’s usually right.”

“Mage?” Jon asks.

“An all-powerfull henchmen for the High Priestess,” Lovett says at the same time as Dan rolls his eyes and automatically corrects, “a scholar.”

Jon laughs, although it comes out a little hoarsely. He’s still feeling lightheaded, the magic in him cracking and fizzing, pressing out from his skin towards the wells of dark magic under the floorboards. His vision blurs as he tries to joke, "everyone's a witch now."

"Everyone but you," Dan agrees, as he steadies Jon's shoulder. "Pour the tea, before he passes out. Dark hocus pocus bullshit that it is.”

"If it's such bullshit," Lovett mutters as he dumps out the water in the tea kettle and fills it with a flick of his wrist, wringing water from the air around them, "then why are you ordering me to do it?"

"It's _usually_ a load of hogwash. But you're the best there is." Dan shrugs through the compliment. "Besides, it's just confirmation."

Lovett grumbles, but he presses his palm against the tea pot until it starts to whistle, then he pours it into a chipped ceramic mug. "It's gonna burn, but drink it all at once."

Burning, Jon will whine later, severely understates the scalding of the hot tea as he swallows it. There are tears in his eyes as he drops it back to the table, but Lovett reaches out, bypassing the mug to wrap his fingers around Jon's throat, whispering a healing charm that Jon recognizes. The cut, blistered feeling smooths and cools, and Lovett sits back in his chair, reaching for the mug.

"You sure you wanna know what your future holds?" Lovett asks.

"No," Jon admits.

"Just read them already, before we grow grey waiting for you to confirm what I already know." Dan reaches up, running his fingers through the hair at his temples that's inched progressively towards white since he's left the White House.

Lovett slides his heel under him, leaning across the table as he chants, low and steady, until his eyes flash again, flecks of gold and red ringing his irises.

He turns the cup over in his hand, muttering low and ominously in Hebrew, for long interminable minutes before he puts the cup down. His eyes flash and he sags against the table, like a marionette only held up by strings of dark magic of his own making. "Fuck," he whispers. "The shape I've been seeing. The darkness. It's- Fuck- _Jon_."

"What?" Jon asks. He reaches for the cup, feeling the ceramic still warm to his touch. "What did you see?"

"Don't-" Lovett's fingers brush against his, knocking him off balance.

The last thing Jon hears before the world goes dark is the sound of ceramic shattering against an uneven wooden floor.

***

When Jon wakes, the world is warm and quiet. His entire body aches and his skin crackles and burns.

He can hear the low murmur of voices and can feel soft fingers on his forehead. He blinks his eyes open to see Tommy looming over him, his face slipping from concern to relief as he sees Jon's awake.

"Hey babe," Tommy whispers. "Welcome back."

Jon coughs and struggles to sit up against the arm of the couch. "Where'd I go?"

He means it as a joke, but Lovett shivers where he's sitting cross-legged on the floor by Jon's head. Leo's curled in his lap and he wiggles and whines as Lovett's fingers tighten in his fur. "Certainly not down a well of dark magic that you threw yourself into rather than _running the other way_."

"I-" Jon glances at Tommy, but the circles under Tommy’s eyes are almost as ashen as Lovett’s. Jon swallows. “I didn't know."

“You knew enough to bribe the graffiti witch,” Lovett mutters.

Tommy starts, his fingers stuttering against Jon’s forehead. He pulls his hand back to his lap, but he doesn’t move his hip from the warm, centering touch against Jon’s.

“How did you know that there even was a market there?” Lovett asks, his eyes dark and guarded. “You shouldn’t have been able to be there.”

“I followed you.” Jon stares at him. “You shouldn’t have been there either.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Lovett raises his knees, curling himself inwards and pulling Leo closer to his chest as he rubs at the skin under Leo’s chin. “You think I don’t know exactly what I’m risking by wading back into all of this? My place in this company. My place,” his voice breaks, “with both of you.”

“Your mind,” Tommy adds, darkly. “If you hadn’t stopped last time-" 

Magic crackles in the place where they’re touching and Jon sees flashes of Lovett in DC, eyes dark with magic, voice thick and low as he fights against Tommy’s hold. Lovett struggling as Dan murmurs in Gaelic. Lovett shaking with withdrawal, twitching towards the tea kettle but reaching for Tommy’s hand instead.

Tommy swallows as he watches Jon watch his memories. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Lovett whispers. About Jon. About everything he’s risking. “But the things I was seeing- Fuck, Jon, it was so dark and I thought-" He shakes his head, laughs a little desperately. “I thought it was about Trump. Maybe a warning about healthcare or Kavanaugh or- for a while there, I was _convinced_ it was about North Korea. A warning about nuclear war that I wouldn’t even really understand before it was too late. But then-"

Tommy reaches out, sliding his toes under Lovett’s thigh, tapping him lightly.

“That night you woke up, Jon. The night you dream walked?”

Jon nods, rubbing his middle finger, where he’d felt Lovett’s burn blistering.

“I should have known, then. Would have, if I hadn’t been so afraid of your future that I hid in my past. I read everyone’s leaves I could get my hands on, hoping, desperately, that the darkness belonged to someone else.” Lovett lets his knees falls back to the floor, pressing into Tommy’s touch. “It was my worst nightmare. That darkness all focused on you. I _just_ got you, I can’t-"

Lovett’s eyes shade darker, lost in the memories of every future he’s seen, every dark line, the sinister web woven from that dark, twisting spiral of magic in Jon’s gut.

“I don’t know what’s been happening to me,” Jon whispers, shifting so he can pull the small cedar box from his pocket. It burns hot in his palm. “The graffiti witch wasn’t the first magical wall I’ve walked through. The barrier. At the convention.”

Lovett’s eyes widen.

Tommy’s breath catches. “When I saw you, by the tree, you lied to me.”

“I thought I was going mad.” He holds out the box. “An old woman sold this to me. I don’t even know what it is, but- when I touch it-" He runs his index finger over the top and it glows red. 

Tommy reaches for it and, as Jon slips it into Tommy’s palm, sigils rise out of the wood. “Gaelic,” Tommy whispers, as he traces the top one. He flips it over. “Hebrew.”

“I’ve only seen those once before. The night you were hurt, Tommy.”

Lovett sets Leo on the carpet and leans forward, pressing against Tommy’s knees so he can squint at the box. “You were ready, when we got home.”

Jon nods. “I saw, the whole thing. I was there, in the clearing.”

Lovett closes his eyes, his voice broken as he whispers, “I’m sorry. I never meant- I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jon promises, leaning forward so he can tuck a stray, sweaty curl behind Lovett’s ear.

“Actually,” Dan says and Jon jumps, his fingernail scratching against Lovett’s earlobe as he looks up to see Dan stopped halfway into the living room. He’s leaning against the wall, a thick, crumbling book in his hands. “That’s not strictly true.”

Lovett rubs at his ear as he turns his head, glaring at Dan.

“Your magic has- I don’t know the right metaphor.”

“That’s not like you,” Lovett mutters under his breath, still rubbing at his ear.

Tommy kicks him.

“Leaked into him,” Dan finishes, mostly, Jon thinks, for the way both Tommy and Lovett glow under their pale skin.

“We might have,” Tommy admits, slowly, as he pinches between his eyes, “lent him some. A few times.”

“Only when he was being particularly obstinate,” Lovett adds, quickly. “Or, I was discretionary. Tommy poured magic into him every time he had an ingrown toenail.”

Jon wrinkles his nose.

“Only once,” Tommy promises. Jon can see the flush spreading all the way down his arms.

“That amount of magic,” Dan interrupts them, with the same tone he uses to call Paul Ryan an _ineffectual dipshit_ , “unharnessed can be dangerous.”

“I’ve been taking magic lessons,” Jon says, defensively. “But I’m not very good at it. I did a calming spell on Tommy once and I did a little blood magic last week, but other than that-" He trails off as all three gape at him.

“You _healed Tommy_?”

“ _A little_ blood magic?”

“Shit.” Dan flips a few pages in his book. “Shit.”

“They weren’t-" Jon swallows. “They weren’t very successful. I’m not really sure that Tommy was all that much calmer and- I can’t even make a damn stone move.”

Lovett sits back on his heels, speaking to Tommy with his eyes before he says, “I was never very good at telekinesis.”

“My worst subject,” Tommy agrees.

“What-? Would someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“You can’t do magic,” Dan tells him, closing the book around his index finger. “The things you can do are phantoms of Lovett and Tommy, filtering through your soulbond.”

“Fuck.” Tommy leans back, all the flush draining from his cheeks.

Lovett’s shoulders slump.

Jon’s mouth goes dry. “Soulbond?”

“Your _unrequited_ soulbond,” Dan corrects.

“It’s not unrequited,” Jon says, so quickly that both Lovett and Tommy raise their heads to blink at him.

“In a magical sense,” Tommy explains.

Lovett smiles a little, just a little quirk of his lips, but the first Jon’s seen since he came to. “Good to know, though.”

“If you don’t complete the bond,” Dan says, reopening the book and reading from it, “and bound the magic it’ll ’grow hungrier until it eats the host, its partner, and every magical being in its wake.’”

“Friendly bit of magic,” Tommy muses.

“Trust you to over-achieve,” Lovett shakes his head, “at _soulbonds_.”

“I didn’t start this,” Jon reminds them.

“No,” Dan agrees. “But you will have to finish it.”

“Guess we’re going to Salem,” Tommy says.

Lovett drops his head. “Fuck.”

Tommy laughs and squeezes the back of Lovett’s neck. “My mother will be so pleased.”

***

The plane dips and sinks over an air pocket.

Jon drums his fingers against his armrest. His stomach swoops with the plane.

Next to him, Lovett sucks in a breath. His hands are clutched in his lap, knuckles white, his knee bouncing in rhythm with the weather outside, a beat ahead of the plane’s allegro. His eyes are squeezed shut, his forehead wrinkled in concentration as sweat beads on his forehead.

Jon can feel the magic around them. Swirling winds coalescing under the plane, dissipating before it can take hold. A wall against the oncoming storm that crumbles and cracks as they fly closer.

Jon’s stomach twists and his skin sizzles. He takes a deep breath, picturing the pit of magic in his chest, isolating the strain of teal and holding it out. Lovett grabs for Jon’s hand without opening his eyes, his fingernails biting into Jon’s skin and his mind tugging at the strand of teal, pulling it towards him.

The wind swirls again and settles under the plane like a cloud, stabilizing the wings.

The plane evens out. The entire plane’s worth of passengers let out a collective breath.

Tommy tucks his book against his thigh, muttering “holy shit” as he raises his arm rest and urges Lovett to collapse against his chest. He smoothes a sweaty curl off Lovett’s forehead.

Jon’s anxiety settles into a familiar slow, steady thrum. He feels empty and he reaches out subconsciously for the strand of teal he’d shared, but Lovett’s magic shrugs back at him, drained and exhausted.

Lovett closes his eyes against Tommy’s shoulder. “Wake me when we get to Boston.”

Jon catches Tommy’s eye over Lovett’s head. “He’s been holding out on me. Could have used that more than a few times on Air Force One.”

Tommy chuckles a little desperately. “That was all you.”

“Fuck.” Jon drops his head back against the headrest. Tommy reaches across Lovett’s shoulders to squeeze Jon’s shoulder and leaves his hand there. “Am I going to be okay?”

“If anyone can help us, it’ll be the High Priestess.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “‘If’?”

Tommy smiles at him. “You’re the blind optimist. I tell it as it is.”

Between them, Lovett grumbles. “Stop stealing my tagline.”

“Asshole.” Tommy kisses the top of Lovett’s head and trails his fingers over the bare skin of Jon’s neck. “Go to sleep.”

Jon closes his eyes.

***

Tommy’s mom and sister greet them at arrivals with a sign that says “Salem Save America.”

“You’d think we’ve never visited,” Lovett mutters. His color has returned, for the most part, and - after Jon woke feeling nauseous and stumbled getting off the plane - he’s already wrapped his hand around Jon’s wrist and shared a bit of his replenished magic.

“She’s my mother,” Tommy argues, “we could never visit enough.”

Lovett rolls his eyes, but he accepts the tight hug and quick kiss with decorum. He even lets Taylor knock the Nintendo hat off his head as she wraps an arm around his neck and pulls them all towards the door. “So, I hear you’ve fucked up magic.”

“Me?” Lovett puts a hand to his chest. “Who’s the strongest one in this family?”

“Oh, so, when it’s good magic, it’s all ‘it’s not the size that matters’ but when it’s bad magic, it’s the size that counts?”

“Obviously.”

Taylor rolls her eyes. “You are all the worst. When are you going to leave witchcraft to the women, hmm?”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Jon tells her. “Or so I’m told.”

“The High Priestess.” Her eyes glaze over dreamily. “She’s wonderful.”

“Terrifying,” Tommy corrects.

“I’d rather go in front of Mueller’s grand jury,” Lovett agrees.

“Men.” Taylor throws up her hands, knocking Lovett’s hat off for a second time. He catches it and shoves it into his bag. “I wish I was going with you.”

“You have classes,” Tommy reminds her. “That masters won’t earn itself.”

“I can miss one class on _As You Like It_. It’s not like I haven’t read it a thousand times.”

“A thousand?” Jon needles.

“Jon hasn’t read a book in five years.” Lovett bumps his shoulder. “If you need some other recommendations, come to me. I’ll recommend something that isn’t about Middle East Peace or a Twitter feed.”

“I can recommend some really accessible books on the Middle East,” Tommy glares. “Or, you know, my podcast.”

Taylor tilts her head. “Do you host one of those?”

“It’s better than his Twitter feed,” Jon promises.

Lovett lowers his voice conspiratorially. “Not a high bar.”

“She has a room full of books,” Louise ignores them all and raises an eyebrow at her daughter. “And for the amount I’m paying per hour? You better not even go to the restroom during class.”

“This is a special occasion,” Taylor argues.

“Your brother fixing a mistake he made is not a special occasion.”

“Hey.”

Louise narrows her eyes at both of them. “Besides, it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Taylor sighs.

“Wait.” Jon frowns. “Why wouldn’t it be appropriate?”

Tommy shifts his eyes. Lovett futzes with the strap of his duffle bag.

“The only way to complete a soulbond,” Taylor grins, lowering her voice dramatically, “is through sex magic.”

Jon stops in his tracks.

“Come on,” Louise calls behind her. “We have a reservation at 8 and they’ll give away our table if we’re not there on time.”

“Sex magic?” Jon repeats.

Tommy shrugs, but his face is flushed. “It’s not like we haven’t done it before.”

“No, but-"

“I don’t wanna hear this,” Taylor calls, putting her fingers in her ears until they reach the car. “I call shotgun.”

“- _sex magic_?” Jon finishes, but he’s standing alone on the sidewalk. He sighs and follows them into the car.

***

Dinner is such a normal affair that Jon almost forgets what they’re here to do. They go to a seafood place a few blocks from the ocean and order enough shellfish to fill the newspaper-covered table.

Taylor pushes all her clams in front of Tommy and steals more than her fair share of crab legs until Lovett threatens her with his cracker. “Duel you for it?” She suggests, holding up a bright red shell.

Jon’s not sure who wins but he’s pretty sure the seafood lost.

After Tommy sneaks his credit card to the waiter and Louise reams them all out for wasting money that should be reinvested in their company - “we’ll get Blue Apron to pay for it” Lovett suggests and Jon’s pretty sure that he’s joking but he makes a note to double check later - they head down to the beach. It’s late, the moon shining down on the water, bathing their bare feet in ripples of light and water.

Jon stands at the tide line, wiggling his toes, thinking about the boy who stood on this same shore. Shorn hair and ears much too big for his eight-year old frame, staring out at the water and wondering if he’d ever amount to anything better than the C on the latest spelling test he’d forgotten to study for. That little boy would have gawked at the White House and would have laughed silly at the idea that he could yell at people for a living. That little boy was still six years on from Harry Potter, and he would have frowned skeptically at the magic coursing through him now. That little boy would have laughed in delight and disbelief at the picture Louise takes of them, Tommy’s arm around his shoulders and Lovett leaning into his chest and all of them mid-laugh.

“Not quite the way you imagined it,” Jon says, quietly, voice floating away on the light breeze as he remembers the vision Tommy shared with him, through a flash of magic Jon shouldn't have.

Tommy tugs at his belt loop, pulling him into a soft, sister-appropriate kiss. “Come on,” he whispers against Jon’s mouth, “it’s almost time for the ritual.”

“This is an unnecessary risk,” Lovett’s saying, when they reach the patch of sand Lovett’s measured out with the angles and cosines that he can see so clearly in his mind. He’s kneeling in the sand, his sweatpants pushed past his knees, drawing a pentagon with his finger, but he’s looking at Louise. “We’ll be fine without it.”

“Don’t be silly, dear,” Louise chastises him. “What’s a little blood loss?”

“Besides,” Taylor adds, “blood magic isn’t so dangerous when Tommy’s doing it.”

“Taylor,” Tommy whines, but he’s flushing, soft and pleased, and when Taylor turns to cross her arms at him, she has the same flush, high on her cheekbones.

“Whatever,” Taylor waves him away. “I run circles around your transfiguration.”

“I can’t transfigure a fly.”

“Exactly.” She glances up at the moon, then holds out her finger with a deep breath that belays her certainty. “Better get started if we want this protection spell to actually do any, you now, protecting.”

Tommy pulls a small knife out of his pocket. The hilt is carved with leaves and vines around a Gaelic sigil. Tommy runs his thumb over it. “The sigil for the Vietor coven,” he explains. “It was my dad’s.”

Jon swallows.

Lovett finishes the final spoke and sits back on his heels. “Okay, we’re ready.”

Tommy steps forward, careful to straddle Lovett’s handy-work, and reaches for Taylor’s hand. He chants in low, rhythmic Gaelic as he pricks the end of her middle finger and squeezes a drop of blood into the center of the pentagon. Taylor steps back, sucking her finger into her mouth, as Louise steps forward.

When she steps back, Lovett rises to his feet, brushing sand from his knees and meets Tommy in the middle. “I love you,” Lovett whispers, in Hebrew, and Tommy pulls him in for a long, moonlit kiss. When Lovett pulls back, Tommy nicks his finger. Lovett hisses.

Jon feels a twinge in his own finger, and he cradles it to his chest. Louise is watching him with a worried, raised eyebrow as he steps forward, slowly, to take Lovett’s place.

“It’s going to be okay,” Tommy whispers, in English.

Jon nods and, as Tommy pulls him in for a kiss, he feels the prick in his own finger, a shadow of the knife in Lovett’s. Magic flows from him, a braid of black and teal and a dark purple he’s never seen before.

Tommy pricks his own finger, and as he finishes the spell, the sand glows and simmers. Jon feels an invisible, comforting weight settle over his shoulders.

“The High Priestess won’t dare fuck with you now,” Taylor says, happily, as she helps Lovett destroy the pentagon.

“This cockiness is going to get you into trouble someday,” Tommy warns her, as he wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her back towards the car park.

“Oh,” she says easily, her voice carrying back over the ocean, “it already does. All the time.”

Louise shakes her head, then turns to Jon and Lovett. She places her palms, warm and crackling with the same black magic coursing through Tommy’s veins, on their cheeks. “Welcome to the family.”

Jon’s body fills with warmth and he feels the magic in him settle slightly. Lovett sucks in a breath. “So that’s where Tommy gets his power from.”

She laughs. “What, my husband? He could barely light a small fire.”

Lovett laughs. He reaches for Jon’s hand as they head back up the beach.

***

Louise packs the car with sandwiches and breakfast burritos and waves them off before dawn. The hour and a half drive to Salem is quick in the lack of early morning traffic, but it feels interminable to Jon. He spends it staring out the passenger window at the harbor whipping by, twisting his back so he can stretch out the knots from spending the night on Tommy’s childhood mattress and trying not to think about what they’re driving into.

Tommy fiddles with the radio, choosing an indie-country station that plays more ads than music.

Lovett spends the first fifteen minutes trying to get any of their phones connected to the speakers, but as Jason Isbell comes on the radio, he gives up. The next time Jon glances back, he’s stretched out across the seats, his head pillowed on Tommy’s balled-up sweatshirt and his mouth slightly open.

“He didn’t sleep at all last night,” Tommy murmurs, glancing at Lovett in the rearview mirror and reaching over to rest his hand on Jon’s knee. “If anyone can help us, it’s the High Priestess.”

“And if she can’t?”

Tommy’s face is stoic and Jon curses, not for the first time, his years of NSA training. “That calming spell you did on me-?”

Jon let’s him change the subject. “Yeah?”

“It was too strong for me to do-"

Jon shrugs. “Lovett’s good at healing spells.”

“-so I didn’t show you how to do it. The thing I still don’t understand is how you knew how to cast it?”

Jon pauses. “It was in the book.”

“The book’s in Gaelic.”

Jon doesn’t answer. Outside, the blue of the water blurs with the brown of the shore and Jon reaches, desperately, for happier memories of this drive. Christmases in the White House when he and Tommy would carpool from DC. Summers when they’d drag Lovett to the shore for weekends of vacation that would, inevitably, end with Tommy on a secure line in the laundry room or Lovett and Jon writing speeches on the front porch. 

“Huh.” Tommy leans back in his chair and squeezes Jon’s knee.

“I can read Hebrew characters, too,” Jon shrugs. “Wonder if that’ll stay.”

“Probably not.” Tommy laughs when Jon’s face falls. “But anytime you wanna learn, I’m happy to teach you. I may even still have the worksheets my grandmother used on me when I was little.”

“No need to be so smug about it.”

“Well excuse me.” Tommy’s still laughing, his face lit and warm as they pass a _Welcome to Salem_ sign. “You wrote the words of the most powerful man in the world, let me have this little linguistic victory.”

Jon hums, but his body is buzzing. It’s like the very ground is drench in magic, and Jon can feel it like moisture in the air. He can see it, too, in flashes of reds and blues and oranges in his periphery.

“Blood magic,” Lovett explains, yawning as he sits up. He rubs at the back of his neck. “The blood of witches was spilt here.”

Tommy pulls into a lot in front of a _Salem Witch Trials Memorial_ sign. There’s a brass statue of three witches, metal flames licking at their heels and, when Jon blinks, he can see the metal flicker and warm. He shakes himself.

“It’s strongest at the site” Lovett continues. “That’s why this is the largest and most powerful magical market in the country.”

“In the world?” Jon asks, and gets dual glares.

“If I’m teaching Gaelic, you get magical history,” Tommy says.

“We’ll start with China,” Lovett agrees. “Maybe a trip to Phnom Penh for our honeymoon?”

“I’m not doing a tour of gypsy genocide sites for our honeymoon.”

“Just a little history,” Lovett argues, “along with our tour of witch markets. Wouldn’t kill you to throw a little culture in along with that piece of enchanted jade you’ve been drooling after for ages.”

“Maybe not,” Jon argues, as he pushes open his door and steps out into the early morning sun, “but this might kill us, so let’s not plan our honeymoon until we make sure I survive our soulbond.”

“All I’m hinting at,” Lovett says as he follows Jon out of the car, “is that I’ve always wanted to go to Cambodia and if you’d like to take me there, I wouldn’t say no.”

“Noted.” Tommy chuckles as he joins them. He stares up at something Jon can’t see. “This is the strongest magical wall we’ve seen so far. I don’t know if you’ll be able to-"

Jon can feel the magic all around him, in him, coursing from Lovett and Tommy and through his body. “It’s all about intent,” he parrots back at them, and takes a big step forward.

From one instant to the next, the parking lot dissolves into a market stretching as far as Jon can see and hear in all directions. If Jon had thought the SoCal Wicca Convention was overwhelming, this is so much more. So much brighter, so much louder, so much more colorful. More languages than Jon’s ever heard chase around his head and he wrinkles his nose at the mix of impenetrable smells. He’s knocked forwards, swept into a group of witches haggling over the price of dried lavendar as they walk, and he circles in their midst, looking desperately for the invisible door, when he feels a hand on his collar.

“Stay close,” Tommy whispers in his ear, and Jon tries not to let his relief show on his face. “It’s easy to get lost in here.”

“And dangerous,” Lovett adds, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Not,” Tommy glares at him, “the fun kind of danger. The kind of danger that can take an eye.”

“Some of it’s kinda fun,” Lovett argues.

“Next time,” Tommy promises, leading them both through the main street. There’s dirt under their feet and tall pine trees lining the road, taller than Jon thought possible. They shimmer, like they’re only half in this realm.

In between the trees stand rickety stalls, offering wares from brass pocket watches that don’t seem to work to jars and jars filled with pickled creatures and dried herbs. One, Jon is almost certain, is labeled _rabbit testicles_ , but Tommy pulls him away before he can triple check. Witches pass through the crowd, offering bushels of lemongrass and powdered onion in bulk. The only really tempting thing, though, is a man carrying a shelf of books around his neck, all old and crumbling, with sigils on their spines. Jon can read some of them but not others and, as he reaches out to touch one, Lovett murmurs, “Nsibidi. Nigerian magic.”

Jon wants to stay and read them forever, but Tommy checks his watch, swears “we’re going to be late” and pushes them along.

Tommy leads them off the main street and down a posher lane, lined in intricate street lamps and floating flower arrangements. There’s a gilded mansion at the end of the street, but, as they climb the steps, it looks deserted but for a few bodyguards.

“Tommy Vietor,” Tommy says, to the largest of the guards. He pulls a folded letter from his back pocket. “We have an audience with the High Priestess.”

The guard grunts. He unfolds the paper, murmurs a spell and the paper bursts into flame. Jon reaches, automatically, for it, but the flames blow themselves out, leaving a gold-insignia-ed roll of parchment in the guard’s hands. 

The guard nods, pulling open the huge, golden doors and standing aside.

They step through the doors and onto a wooded path.

“The High Priestess believes in security,” Tommy explains in a whisper, “not opulence.”

The sun doesn’t reach this far into the magical woods, but their way is lit by tea lights strung between the trees, lanterns lining the path, and fireflies flitting back and forth along the path. Jon focuses on them as they walk, and walk, and walk. When his knees are starting to ache, he glances at his watch, but only fifteen minutes have passed since they entered the market.

“Watches don’t work here,” Lovett explains, nodding at Jon’s watch. “Too much interference. But we’re almost there.”

Around the next bend, the path opens into a large clearing. In the center sits a wooden dais with wide steps leading up to a throne. The High Priestess stands, waving them forward. “Ah, welcome. I have been waiting for you.”

“The cards told you we were coming,” Lovett guesses, as they stop in front of the bottom step.

“The cards have foretold of your predicament for a long time now,” she nods, then smiles. “But Dan sent me your flight details a few days ago.”

Jon laughs and her eyes snap to him. They’re dark with magic, her pupils almost entirely hidden by a vibrant, silvery light. She sweeps her long braid over her shoulder as she stands, her hair white as the first snowfall. She takes the stairs slowly, holding her furs away from her feet, and when she gets to the bottom Jon can see the slight bend in her shoulders and the wrinkles creasing her forehead.

“Let me have a look at you, the impossible witch” she whispers, her voice kind as she tips Jon’s chin towards her. Her fingers are cold and calloused, but they do not shake. “Yes, I see.” She tips his chin from side to side.

“Can you fix it?” Tommy asks, as he digs his hands into his pockets.

“The bond is very old,” she tuts. “These first strands have been fraying for over a decade.”

“ _The Senate Office_?” Lovett asks. “Really?”

Tommy shrugs, but his entire face is flushed as the High Priestess turns the same exasperated look on him.

She hums as she drops Jon’s chin and steps back. “You need to bind his magic before you can complete the bond.”

Lovett frowns. “Bind his magic?”

“In a vessel.” She narrows her eyes. “A strong one.”

“How about in a magical cedar box?” Jon asks, as he pulls the box out of his pocket.

Her eyes widen in surprise. “Where did you get this?” She asks, reaching out to run a pale finger over the top, but not taking it from him. The box warms and a sigil appears in the wood.

Jon shrugs. “A witch sold it to me a few months ago. At a market, in California. I didn’t know what it was but- I was drawn to it.”

“Yes.” She smiles a little. “Yes, you would be. This is made of very strong, very old magic. This will do fine.”

“And once his magic has been bound?” Tommy asks.

“Then,” she says, like it’s obvious, “you need to complete the soulbond. Come with me, my priestesses have been preparing the space all morning.”

Jon has a million and more questions, but the High Priestess is radiating impatience. They follow her into a secondary clearing, behind and to the east of the main clearing. There’s a wooden dais in this clearing, too, held up by tall, strong wooden pillars. It’s filled with priestesses, all dressed in long, white dresses. They murmur quiet spells in Gaelic as they draw sigils in the middle of a large, chalked pentagon.

As they walk up, the priestesses scramble to stand, tittering to each other as they nod at Jon, then smile shyly at the High Priestess. “They have completed the foundations for the binding spell. It is up to you,” she narrows her eyes at Tommy, “to complete the soulbond. Everything you need is on the side table.”

Jon glances over to see a long, low table littered with jars and oils.

“This is the final spell for the binding.” She hands over a piece of parchment and Tommy takes it. “You have until dusk. Do try to finish by then.”

Tommy nods and then she’s gone, her priestesses trailing behind her, leaving them alone. A bird chirps. The breeze rustles the trees. The wooden floor squeaks under their feet.

“Kinda wish this was indoors,” Lovett mutters, glancing around at the open walls.

Tommy shrugs, stepping past them both, to the table. “I’m kinda into it.”

Lovett raises an eyebrow at Jon as he follows Tommy. “Something you’d like to share, Tommy?”

“I’d like to fix our bond.” Tommy hands Lovett a jar of herbs, using his free hand to wrap his fingers in Lovett’s collar and pull him in for a long kiss. “Later, though, yeah, maybe something I’d like to discuss.”

“Huh.” Lovett blinks, holding the jar precariously between his fingers.

Tommy laughs and hands three bottles to Jon. His fingers linger over Jon’s. “Would you squeeze these into the mortar? Just a few drops of each.”

“I can squeeze oil and talk about your kinks at the same time,” Jon suggests.

“I am so glad that your sister isn’t here,” Lovett whines, his cheeks already a little flushed as he drops the jar next to Jon. He starts ripping herbs into the mortar, his hip tapping against Jon’s in a nervous rhythm.

Tommy groans as he crosses to the other side of the table and starts to crush the mixture. “Can we not talk about my sister while we’re mixing magical lube?”

Jon’s hand slips and he adds two drops of the pink bottle into the mortar. “That’s what this is?”

“It’s for the binding,” Lovett explains, but then he raises his eyebrows. “Inside and out.”

Tommy groans, closing his eyes as he finishes crushing the herbs. “We don’t have a lot of time, so, bring the innuendo down to a seven.”

“I’m not the one suggesting secret dreams of public indecency in the middle of the most powerful outdoor space in the country,” Lovett grumbles. 

Tommy’s cheeks are flushed but his voice is steady. “Lovett?”

Lovett sighs deeply but he nods, stepping up to the other side of the table and chanting with Tommy as they stir the oil. It’s low and quiet and Jon watches them, feeling the magic fill the dais, spreading from pillar to pillar and singeing his skin. The temperature rises a few degrees, and Jon feels the wisps of magic, hot, dark and insistent as they rustle his t-shirt and swipe past his ankles. He’s already pulling his shirt over his head when Lovett takes the mortar, crouching a little under its weight, and puts it next to the pentagon.

“Hey,” Tommy whispers. He places his flat palm on Jon’s stomach, trailing up the lines of his chest, slowly, too slowly, until he meets Jon’s own hands and helps him finish lifting his shirt over his head. “Hey,” he repeats, his voice rough, as he drops his chin for a long, dirty kiss. 

“Hey,” Jon gasps back when Tommy pulls away and places his fingers under Jon’s chin. 

Tommy’s high cheekbones are flushed and his eyes are dark. “Magic is all about intent, remember?” He turns to look at Lovett over his shoulder. “For all of us. We haven’t really talked about this, since- But we can find another way, if anyone has any doubts.”

“Jumping in with both feet and no rope is kinda my thing,” Lovett shrugs. He swipes his finger through the mortar before he comes to join them, reaching for Tommy’s hand.

Tommy nods, placing his free hand in Lovett’s. “I worry about everything,” Tommy murmurs and Lovett chuckles as he turns Tommy’s hand over. “But I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he promises. He shivers as Lovett draws a large sigil on the inside of his wrist, right over his lifeline. The oil burns and shines, before fading into Tommy’s skin.

Lovett turns to Jon, and Jon’s already holding out his hand. “You and Tommy are my rope,” Jon tells him, urgently, and Lovett rolls his eyes.

“‘I never write in clichés’ he says,” Lovett parrots, but he’s smiling, small and shy, as he takes Jon’s hand. His fingers are shaking as he draws the same sigil on Jon’s wrist, his entire body taut in concentration. Jon can hear Tommy’s ragged breath in his ear and he can feel Lovett’s magic flowing into the sigil as it ignites then fades until Jon has to squint to make it out against his tan skin.

“My turn.” Lovett wipes the rest of the oil onto Tommy’s fingers, then holds out his own hand. 

Tommy takes it, shaking as violently as Lovett was a few moments ago. He pauses with his fingers just above Lovett’s wrist. “You sure?”

“If the universe is going to give me both of you, I’m not going to say no.” Tommy frowns, but Lovett continues, dropping his voice. “I saw a vision of this, once. I was eight and I’d run away from home. It wasn’t my first time, but I didn’t get much further than the school bleachers,” he shakes his head, ruefully. “My grandmother found me within an hour. She asked why I’d run away, and I told her I’d never amount to anything. Certainly not what my father wanted me to amount to, anyway.”

Jon’s chest tightens. He reaches out, nudging Lovett’s hip with his hand, and Lovett glances at him with a tight smile. 

“She had a tarot deck with her, it was old and worn and had made it through Dachau with her mother. She told me it was mine and she showed me how to use it. I- I didn’t know what I was doing, not really, but the cards told me I’d find you.” He leans into Jon’s hand and pushes his wrist into Tommy’s fingers. “I’m done running.”

Tommy swallows. His hands are trembling, but the sigil comes out strong and bold. As it burns bright then disappears, Lovett groans.

“Now that’s done,” Lovett sways into Jon, “can we get naked now?”

Tommy laughs, leading them over to the Pentagon. He sets the parchment from the High Priestess next to the mortar and Jon adds the cedar box to the pile before he toes out of his shoes. “So how does this work?”

“Sex magic is easy,” Lovett steadies himself against Jon’s shoulder as he kicks off his sneakers, then reaches for the button on his jeans. “All we have to do is finish.”

“Together,” Tommy adds as he slaps Lovett’s hands away. “The hard part will be binding your magic. We’ll only have one shot, at the exact moment the bond completes.”

Despite himself, Jon flinches.

Lovett freezes, sucking in his stomach against Tommy’s fingers as his eyes widen at Jon. “Intent- Jon, intent doesn’t only matter for the bond. You have to _want_ the binding spell to work, too.”

“Yeah.” Jon swallows. “Yeah, I do, of course I do.”

Tommy steps back from Lovett. “Wanna try that again? With a little more feeling this time.”

“I-" Jon takes a deep breath. The sigil on his wrist is a warm ache and his skin still crackles with the magic filling the room. “What happens when I lose it?”

Lovett narrows his eyes. “What part of _I loved you before I even met you_ didn’t you understand?”

“You’re an idiot.” Tommy shakes his head. “You know why our bond is fucked?”

Jon shakes his head.

“Cause I started it when I was too young to understand what I was doing. My soul just knew I wanted to help you.”

“Tommy’s always been too strong for his own good,” Lovett accuses.

“You’ve had magic-"

“-stolen magic-"

“For a few months.” Tommy runs his hand down Jon’s bare shoulder. Jon shivers as his touch breaks through the magic sparking across his arm. “We’ve loved you for a decade.”

“Okay.” Jon shakes his head. “Okay, okay. I get it. You’re overdressed.”

“And who’s fault is that?” Lovett asks as he takes the opportunity to step out of his jeans and settle, cross-legged in the center of the pentagon.

He’s trailing his fingers through the oil, dressed only in his boxer briefs, stretched obscenely over his erection. Jon swallows, quickly helping Tommy shed his clothes onto the growing pile.

“Nice of you to join me,” Lovett greets them, his fingers dripping with oil as he reaches for Tommy’s chest, his thumb flicking over Tommy’s nipple as he pulls him into a kiss.

Tommy groans into Lovett’s mouth. Lovett uncrosses his legs, spreading his knees around Tommy’s hips as he falls backwards, pulling Tommy with him.

Lovett grunts as his back hits the wooden floor, and Tommy kisses him apologetically. “Sorry, sorry.”

“This is going to be quicker than I’d like,” Lovett warns, as he arches his hips off the floor to rub against Tommy’s. 

They both groan and Tommy reaches back to push ineffectually at his own briefs. He pulls away just long enough to glare over his shoulder at Jon. “Are you just going to watch? You have the most beautiful fingers. Put them to use.”

“Asshole.” Jon rises onto his knees behind Tommy, his fingers only shaking a little as he hooks them into Tommy’s briefs and pulls them over his hips. “The magical lube?”

Tommy moans, dropping his forehead to Lovett’s collarbone and breathing shallowly against Lovett’s skin.

“Inside and out,” Lovett reminds him, as he pushes the mortar closer.

Jon tips his fingers into the oil and traces Tommy’s spine. Tommy arches his back and the oil drips down his sides, leading a trail down his ass that Jon follows. “You’re so hot like this,” Jon tells him, as he traces circles around the tight rim of Tommy’s ass.

“You know what’s wrong with writers?” Tommy asks. “They talk too much and do too little.”

“Too little, hmm?” Lovett asks as he reaches down between their bodies to wrap his fist clumsily around Tommy’s naked dick and Lovett’s still-clothed one. “Let’s see if we can do something about that.”

Tommy keens forward, pushing his hips up to meet Lovett’s hand. Jon follows, letting his index finger slip past the outer rim. Tommy’s body is hot and welcoming and he thrusts back, automatically, until Jon’s palm is pressed tight against his ass.

Lovett spreads his knees even further, letting himself go and wrapping his fingers around Tommy. “You know what’s wrong with spokespeople?” Lovett asks, his voice dripping with as much heat as Jon’s finger is. “They’re good at lying, but I always know the truth.”

“Fuck.” Tommy braces his hands on either side of Lovett’s head, leaning down for a kiss. It’s all tongue and no lips, and Jon sets the same rhythm with his finger.

“Don’t I?” Lovett pushes, when they part. Tommy’s gasping for air, his breath coming in short, staggered puffs against Lovett’s mouth. “Tommy?”

Jon pulls out just long enough to coat his middle finger in oil, then presses both fingers in. “He’s a little distracted right now,” Jon tells him, as he scissors his fingers, spreading Tommy wider. Tommy eases under him, his entire body sinking into Lovett’s as he spreads his knees as far as they can go between Lovett’s and opens for Jon.

“Fuck, fuck, Jon, you’ve gotta stop- The spell.” Tommy’s eyes are wide as they fly open and his body jerks forward.

Jon isn’t sure which one of them he’s talking too, but he stills with a third finger half inside. Lovett pulls his hand back, precum dripping down his wrist as he trails his hand down Tommy’s side, soothing him. 

Tommy breathes deeply, resting his forehead against the inside of his own elbow as his arms shake and tremble with the effort of keeping himself upright. Jon presses a kiss to Tommy’s spine as he eases a third finger in slowly. “Okay?”

Tommy gasps, nodding his head. “We should move this ahead. If we wanna finish before dusk and if you don’t want me to-"

Jon presses forward, the tip of his middle finger brushing against the perfect spot and Tommy trails off as he gasps, dropping his hips against Lovett’s and grinding down, desperate for pressure.

“Okay, okay.” Lovett groans. “This is going to be embarrassing,” he complains as he shuffles his hips, pushing Tommy up just enough that he can wiggle out of his own briefs.

Tommy whines as Jon removes his fingers and dips them into the oil. He slicks Lovett and Lovett groans, long and loud, as he thrusts into Jon’s hand. 

“Fuck.” Lovett drops his head back. 

“Embarrassing is an inadequate word,” Jon teases him as he helps Tommy lift his hips and adjust his knees against the floor, smudging the pentagon a little as he settles onto Lovett’s dick.

“Fuck,” Lovett repeats. “Holy shit, Tommy. We need to do this more often.”

Tommy chuckles, breathless and unsteady. “Agreed.”

Jon sits back on his heels, pushing his own briefs down so he can palm himself in rhythm with Lovett’s thrusts. “I’ll never get enough of this,” he promises them.

“That’s good,” Lovett gasps. “Seeing as we’re about to tie you to us for- fucking hell - forever.”

Tommy’s hips stutter forward. “Jon,” he whines.

“Fuck.” Jon lets himself go and reaches into the mortar. “Yeah, okay, fuck.” There’s just enough oil left to coat two fingers, and he does so, liberally, before he traces the rim of Tommy’s ass.

Lovett pauses, halfway out, and Jon fists the base of his cock before flattening his fingers along Lovett’s length and pushing in with Lovett’s thrust.

Tommy whimpers, his hips collapsing into Lovett’s.

Lovett stutters, thrusting one, twice, before he can stop himself. He closes his eyes as he forces himself to still, dick pulsing against Jon’s fingers, hot and desperate, as he waits for Tommy to adjust.

Jon runs his free hand down Tommy’s sides, his spine, the twitching muscles of his lower back. “You’re okay,” Jon whispers, bending to press kisses to Tommy’s skin. “I’ve got you.”

Tommy breathes, his entire back bowing with it. “Move. _Please_.”

Jon flexes his fingers, spreading Tommy impossibly wider. He takes his time, waiting for Lovett to pick up his rhythm again, slow and careful, stretching Tommy until he gapes wide enough for Jon to add a third finger.

Jon’s index finger catches on the head of Lovett’s dick and he thrusts, shallow and desperate. “ _Jon_.”

“Fuck.” Jon pulls out, kneeing forward until he’s flush with the back of Tommy’s thighs. He presses his right hand to Tommy’s lower back. “Can I-? Please.”

“Yes,” Tommy whispers, dropping his head and arching his back so he can push back. “Please, Jon, fuck, yes, _Jon_.”

Jon closes his eyes as he hears his name on Tommy’s lips, the same desperate whine on Lovett’s, and he pushes forward, as slow as he possibly can with Tommy spreading around him and Lovett, holding himself still but pulsating with warmth, under him.

The air catches, as if the birds and the trees and the magic building around them all stop to hold their breath as Tommy bites a desperate sound into Lovett’s shoulder. Jon waits, until he’s sure he can tip over the edge right here, without another movement, until he feels Tommy loosen, until he feels Tommy start to breathe again.

Tommy raises his head, just far enough for a desperate, wet kiss that Lovett grants him, arching his neck to meet him. Then he turns his head and Jon presses forward, moving against Lovett and drawing groans out of all three of them, so that he can kiss Tommy, long and loose.

When Tommy pulls back, he drops his neck, straightening out his spine and ordering, “move, please, Jon, Jon, please.”

Lovett flattens his feet against the floor, thrusting upwards, sliding against Jon’s dick. Jon sets the opposite rhythm, pulling out as Lovett pushes in, and there’s no break in the endless stream of desperate cries falling from Tommy’s lips.

Jon loses himself in the feel of it. Jon loses track of where Lovett ends and Tommy begins and where he fits in-between. He loses himself in the heat of Tommy’s body and the flush of Lovett’s skin. He forgets where they are, as the dais sinks away and they rise, slowly, into the air, on a cloud of Lovett’s making.

Magic swirls around them, crackling in sparks of black and teal lightning. It tugs at Jon, flickering across his legs and his arms and his back, tying him closer, closer, closer, until he’s barely thrusting, so lost in the heat of it. Tommy gasps, “I’m gonna- please, tell me you’re close, _please_.”

Lovett’s eyes fly open, and they’re dark, pupils filling his entire eyes with black magic, flecked with teal, as his hips stutter. “Yes, please, I can’t-"

Jon slides his hand around Tommy’s hips, wrapping around Tommy’s dick. He’s so hard, leaking thick and wet against Jon’s fingers as his hips stutter.

“Yeah,” Jon whispers, as he feels Tommy come apart under him. Lovett thrusts once, raising his hips and pushing as deep as he can, before he comes, wet and hot against Jon and Jon squeezes his eyes shut as he follows.

Magic rises to meet him, a rollercoaster of power that crests and breaks against the pentagon. Jon squeezes his eyes shut against the onslaught, lost in its caress, in the smell of lightning and the crack of power. He feels Tommy’s fingers on his neck and he hears Lovett call for “the box, now, we don’t have much time.”

And then Lovett’s holding out the box and Jon can feel the nexus of magic in him reach out towards it. For one, brief moment, he resists, grabbing at the edges of it desperately. Then he remembers Tommy saying _a decade_ and Lovett promising _I loved you before I met you_ and he lets it go.

The magic flows from him into the small cedar box and, as Lovett slams it shut, Jon feels an empty, gnawing hole in him, and he shivers like he’s been dumped into an ice bath. He wraps his arms around his chest, trying, desperately, to keep himself together. He reaches out, his fingers slipping against Tommy’s sleeve, and he realizes, with a start, that the ripping, horrifying cries of pain are coming from him.

Lovett doesn’t look at him, though, as he reaches for Tommy’s hands, chanting low and calm in a language Jon no longer understands. Tommy mirrors him, and Jon reaches out for them, his fingers scraping against them both as he searches for a path out of the darkness.

Jon’s wrist burns, a flash of light as the sigil ignites. It illuminates a path through the darkness, and Jon follows it, climbing quietly out of the hole he’d dug for himself, until he comes back to the dais, feeling the wood under his hips, seeing the smudged pentagon leaving streaks of chalk across his skin, cradling his left hand to his chest. It’s still shining bright and, as Jon looks from it, up into Lovett and Tommy’s bright, hopeful, worried faces, Jon feels light fill the dark hole of magic inside him. It settles, calm and steady, and as Jon tugs on it, both Lovett and Tommy lean forward.

“Welcome back,” Tommy murmurs, reaching out to push a sweaty strand of hair off Jon’s forehead.

Lovett squeezes Jon’s knee, and Jon can see the same, bright, fiery sigil on Lovett’s wrist. “You scared us a little, there.”

“I-" Jon tries, coughs, then tries again. His throat feels raw, like he’s been screaming. “I thought I’d lost you, in the darkness.”

“You didn’t,” Lovett promises him.

Tommy raises his own, burning wrist. “You never will, again.”

Jon smiles, fighting against the exhaustion threatening to take him under, to a much more pleasant sleep. It’s a losing battle, and the last thing Jon remembers is Lovett’s laughter and Tommy’s soft voice saying “it worked, he’s going to be fine.” He hears the low sounds of the High Priestess and feels a soft robe draped over his shoulders before he gives in to sleep.

***

September in Martha’s Vineyard isn’t quite as warm as May, but it’s a beautiful, cloudless day and Jon barely shivers as he leans back against the shoreline. Jon can’t feel the magic anymore, but he’s pretty sure Lovett is keeping the wind at bay, if the look of concentration on his forehead is anything to go by.

“Okay, try again.” Taylor holds out a thick book of magical history. “The next sentence.”

Jon sighs, pulling it into his lap and squinting at the Gaelic sigils. “This was so much easier yesterday.”

“Two days ago,” Tommy says, without moving his arm from over his eyes. He’s lying next to Jon, his shoulder pressing into Jon’s knee, and Jon can just make out the slight miscoloring on his wrist, where their bond sigils sit, “you were on death’s door, so let’s put your illiteracy in perspective.”

Lovett laughs, falling back against the rocks on Tommy’s other side, letting the wind swirl around them for a moment. 

Taylor points her finger at the page. “Now you get to learn like the rest of us did.”

Jon narrows his eyes at the sigils, willing them to take form in his brain, but they stay obstinately silent.

“Taylor,” Louise calls from the house. “Leave your brothers alone and come help me set the table.”

Taylor sighs, muttering, “just cause I’m a girl-"

“Because you didn’t undergo a day of black magic yesterday,” Tommy corrects. “And I’ll shuck the corn. Just, give me a minute?”

She huffs, but grabs the book from Jon and makes her way up the bank to the house.

Tommy sighs, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees. He stares out at the ocean as he asks, “any regrets?”

Lovett rubs at the inside of his wrist. “About this? Never. About the midterms-"

“One thing at a time,” Tommy chastises, turning his head to look at Jon. “Regrets?”

Jon closes his eyes, feeling the bright bond tying them together, settled, easy and light, in his chest even as he reaches out for magic that stays obstinately quiet. “Nah,” Jon agrees. “Small price to pay for my sanity and the health of the world.”

Tommy smiles.

“The country isn’t safe yet,” Lovett mutters.

“Okay, okay.” Tommy chuckles, holding out his hands for them. “We can shuck corn while we make a plan for restoring our democracy.”

Jon stands, for a long moment, staring out across the ocean before he follows them.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! Tumblr [here](http://stainyourhands.tumblr.com/) now that authors have been revealed :)


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